Will “Prudent” be tomorrow’s budget winner?
March 11th, 2008
Can we repeat our 2007 success?
One of the down-sides of political betting is that unlike racing or football or other sporting events you very rarely get the chance to cheer your choice on while an event is running. It’s all rather cold and mechanistic apart from, that is the budget.
Above is a list of spread markets from Sporting Index. Here you look at the list and decide whether Darling is going to say more or less of the words and phrases and then you place a buy or a sell trade.
My money is on the number of time he uses the word “prudent”. The buy side is at just 1.25 so there is very little down-side risk. I was restricted to a miserly £10 a time so the most I’ll lose is £12.50 - but it seems a good bet.
Last year we had great success on the length of the Chancellor’s speech. There was was strong hint in the Guardian that a record was being planned. This was discussed on the site and quite a lot of people got on.
This appeared two days beforehand: Treasury insiders said the chancellor might seek to break the record for the length of a budget speech, which would mean coming in at either less than the 45 minutes Disraeli took to whiz through his measures in 1867 or more than the four hours and 45 minutes Gladstone took to chunter through his oration in 1853. Let’s hope it’s the former.
This seemed a pretty good pointer which was reasonably well-sourced to suggest that a short speech was being planned. The spread on the speech’s length was 57-59 minutes and I sold at £50 a minute. This meant that for ever minute short of 57 I would make £50 - for every minute above I would lose that amount. There was quite a big down-side risk - for if he had gone on for an hour and 17 minutes I would have been down £1000.
So roll along the budget itself and Gordon started rather slowly. He seemed to have quietened down a lot and his presentational style was different - more measured and more effective. Oh dear, I thought, this is going to take longer than I thought. COME ON GORDON - get on with it I roared at the TV to the immense surprise of those in the university common room who were watching with me.
Half an hour went by and still we hadn’t had a budget measure. This looked bad but then he speeded up and I finished with a profit of about £450.
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Mike Smithson
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I think the phrase ‘we are doing the right thing for the country/taxpayer’ will win out. labour ministers use it every chance they get to try and make themselves out to be correct.
Doesn’t GB say Billions and not Billion!
so AD will copy him!
Before i forget, I watched that program on Enoch Powell - “River of Blood speech” the other day on BBC 2.
What a shame Enoch did not become PM in 1970 (Powell lost to Heath in 1965), Powell was 10 years (Possibly 20 if you look at some of his earlier discourse) in front of Mrs T in the ideological stakes that the political system now takes as the centr ground. Powell could well have been the best PM we have never had. Just imagine how much better a homogenuis pre - mass imigration society we would have now.
I would say that immigration is the biggest problem the UK currently has to face. This is because it cuts across all the other bread and Butter issues such as housing, NHS, employment (Or ghettosisation of some communities as unemployement hot spots), education, Law and Order, social security, transport etc. I do not tarnish any group or race with a brush, simply i say Powell was absolutly right about immigration as he was about economics and much of the other things he said!
The dogmatic and PC brigade may disagree but i think Powell would have been a great PM for this country and may have confronted the “british disease” (In economic terms) before it would have been so painful to cure.
Are there any odds on his choice of tipple?
5 - Rough scrumpy?
5 As he’s from Scotland,I’ve got a shrewd suspicion
5. Something like metholated spirits i should imagine given the deteroiting economic conditions!
4. Ahead of his time in so many ways. If Powell had been listened to in the 1950s and 1960s on bringing in floating exchange rates, Britain would have been saved a great deal of unnecessary pain.
Will the 2p a litre on diesel still go ahead? I expected to hear a lot about “Well placed”.
Sad thing is, by the time I get home so I can bet on this all the value will have gone!
God damn offices. They *all* ban betting sites.
P*sses me off!!
2 & 3 - Is that Tom at RWCMD?
5 Alcopops. While they are still cheap!
9. Yes i agree. The same with immigration now!
Something Enoch would probably not agree with is cloning, I think their is an urgent need to clone people like Enoch Powell, Einstien and all the genuises from the past to help solve the problems of the future!
re 11 except this one, which never ceases to amaze me!
14. To the lefties who disagree - why is it so many politicians on the left try to run as JFK? It is obvious the politicans of the past are better than the ones of the present or maybe it is because they are dead?
Thinking about it some people on this site have positive things to say about Adolf Hitler and Jo stalin…………?
15 and 11,
I know, funny that. My office bans betting sites, but this site has betting in its URl and gets through no probs.
4
Powell could have been by far the cleverest politiciand of his day and right on everything he said… but as he failed to gather a consensus around him, he was a failure.
Politics is all about the art of the possible. And Powell had no idea of that. So he achieved: nothing.
14. Great men have been shaped as much by their experiences as by their DNA. Cloning for this purpose would be pointless, not to mention deeply undemocratic!
16. It’s because we remember the good politicians and forget the bad or mediocre ones. No-one ever tries to run as Nixon or Ford.
18. Well, all i would say to that is look at the local election results in 1968. The political consesus was certainly not around Powell but the public consesus almost certainly had been!
Dockers for Powell etc, normally these people did not vote or voted Labour. Not many Tories really disagree with Powells sentiments, then or now. Just the Political class who were scared……. Ironically Powell was probably more instrumental in helping heath to win than anyone else in 1970 including heath. I once got talking to a bloke who had just retired, he said he voted Labour apart from 1970 due to Powell - when he voted Tory……. I think if Powell had been PM he could have constructed a permenant governing majority.
Will it be the ‘economy stupid’ again in November ??
Is McCain overpriced at around 7/4 ??
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8942.html
What on earth is “A Night On The Tiles” an why does the spread expect him to say it over 50 times!!
“The other day, I was having a Night On The Tiles out in Edinburgh, when I suddenly realised that we shouldn’t raise fuel duty by 2p in this budget, so fuel duty will be frozen for the next 12 months, this will help millions of families…”
Confuzzzed :-/
19. To turn it on its head: What were the Labour party thinking of when they got rid of Blair - When Cameron is said to use Blair as his role model. Brown obviously basis himself of John Major - Blair bet Major. Where is the logic in Brown instead of Blair?
How about ‘Global Warming’, ‘binge’, and ‘Green’?
Can you get odds on “the credit cruch which started in America”?
22. Maybe in anticipation of a ‘binge drinking’ budget? I’m as confused as you are…
“Sips of Water” - surely a bit low. He’ll be a bit nervous, being his 1st one. Nervousness = dry mouth.
3-4 sips would be more likely, I’d have thought.
(can’t believe I’m discussing this)
For those interested in the Mississippi primary CNN coverage begins at 1am GMT :
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#MS
With all the Budget trails suggesting government spending is slowing rapidly, but that the black hole in the accounts means tax rises rather than tax neutrality or tax cuts, the burden of reviving a drifting economy is totally on the BoE/MPC and its interest rate decisions.
I want politicians to make the tough choices on inflation and growth by setting interest rates as well as government spending policies and then I want the right to vote against him if he gets it wrong.
Call me old fashioned, but I like the men/women who set my economic policies being beholden to me, so I find this seriously undemocratic.
25 Matt J. ‘credit cruch’ ??? …… 100/1
Nice one Mike, I’ve followed you in with a buy of “prudent” at the slightly higher price of 1.5 times mentioned.
Although I’m hopeful of a modest profit, it’s difficult to see how the maasive levels of borrowing to which the Government is committed for the foreseeable future can in any way be described as prudent. Everyone knows Darling should be making major cuts to public expenditure as well as increasing taxes, so as to get somewhere nearing balancing the books. But neither is going to happen for fear of driving the economy into deep recession.
Maybe we’ll hear the odd “I would have liked to have been more prudent but[insert Gordon left left me with this mess you see”] or equivalent.
22/26. Tempted to put a sell bet on!!
I’ll eat my hat if he says “A Night On The Tiles” over 50 times!!
How likely is it that he says that?!
Unless he’s written his speech like this:
Chancellor: “The other night I got totally pi$$ed off my face on Princes street and was so hammered, I staggered home and passed out on my Kitchen floor. When I awoke the next morning after a night on the tiles, I felt terrible. Yes, that’s right, I spent a night on the tiles. My kitchen floor. A night on the tiles. Nothing as uncomfortable as a night on the tiles. A night on the tiles makes you really tired. It’s exhausting the next day. People say; “why do you look so tired Alasdair?”, and I say, of course, it’s because I had a night on the tiles! A night on the tiles is so draining old chap. A night on the…..” Etc. etc. etc.
Er.. and that’s only 7 times.
Please. Somebody enlighten me.
29 Which is why Brown gave them ‘independence’. as you saw with Rock its all about having a fall guy in position so he cant be blamed. He set the rules for the tri-partite regulatory system which failed its first test and he sets the rules for the MPC which cannot provide the stimulous now required. In short everything points to the hideous economic mismanagement by Brown.
A Clinton ‘path to the nomination’ ?!?!?!
Once upon a time …..
http://www.dailykos.com/
My suggestions:
Length: 61 mins 30 secs
Speaker: 2 interventions
Sips: 3
Night on Tiles: None
Health: 15
Million/s: 10
Billion/s: 40
Euro: 2
Education: 25
Prudent: 1
Enviroment: 20
32 I agree Casino - that one certainly baffled me.
I’ve also had a £10 buy at 1.1 of the number of sips of water he takes, here again the downside is very limited.
Will they pay out on the sips of water bet if Darling chooses anything other than water?
“Challenging”, “Credit Crunch/Debt Crisis”, “Security”, and “Hard working families” all look like racing certainties to me…
37 I’m sure Sporting wouldn’t wish to Rob me of £11 on such a hair-splitting interpretation!
Martin Day, why ‘would’ you say that (4) given that no-one asked you and this thread is about the budget? Why is a permanent ruling majority desireable in a democracy?
I imagine that even in your apartheit ‘homogenous’ society you would still find something to whine about, and would still be talking to yourself in a public forum.
I alcohol allowed inside the chamber?
38 Quite so Cicero, shame none of these are included in the list of runners and riders.
20: Martin Day thinks, “Not many Tories really disagree with Powells sentiments, then or now.” That’s interesting. Do other Conservatives here agree?
On a perhaps less controversial note, isn’t it a shame that the Times today has taken another leap towards tabloid values by giving huge front-page coverage to what appears to be an absolutely unabashed voodoo poll (about consumer attitudes)?
They say “The Times has a long history of commissioning opinion polls. These are scientifically rigorous, using a carefully selected panel of maybe 1,000 people. At Times Online, we can do things very differently. We can throw out questions to our readers and capture their mood quickly, cheaply and easily. It doesn’t have the statistical rigour of an opinion poll, but it’s a snapshot of unfiltered opinion and anecdotal.”
In other words, we’ve often done polls that might actually mean something, but that’s boring and uncool, so we’re pushing it onto page 5 to make space for a collection of responses from people who happen to read our website and that’s OUR PAGE ONE STORY!
that should “Is”
I really musted proof reed my typsinG!!
41 - Yes, but only for the Chancellor while he is delivering his budget. GB, son of the Manse that he is, chose not to.
@38:
I got £2.50 on him swigging on a bucket of pig’s blood and cheap vodka, leering across the dispatch box, and shouting lasciviously “Prudence may be dead, but I’d still do her! Phwoar, eh, lads?” before running across the house, planting his head in Vince Cable’s lap, saying “I love you daddy” and then passing out.
Worst bet I ever made.
What about “British”?
46 You may be hopeless at this betting game, but you certainly have a lively imagination!
43. I wouldn’t know enough about Enoch Powell’s beliefs to say. Although I did approve of his continuous opposition to the death penalty, and his Rivers of Blood speech seemed unnecessarily antagonistic.
Is GB really son of Manse. Never knew that.
Nick P,
Sign of the Times I fear. We keep following that logic we could have GE every week because the voting public have changed there minds and we want new government.
On Enoch, some the governments pronouncements on Immigration have not been too dissimilar. I do think Enoch poisoned the debate about multiculturalism such that it is only very recently that it has started to be debated without everyone been called a racist.
It has too be said, I was not even a twinkle in my moms eye when it was made though.
@43:
I pointed out that Powell’s speech was inflammatory and demonised people when the real problem always has been the flawed notion of multiculturalism.
The way he made his points effectively made rational discussion about the issues he wanted to raise impossible, because he’d emotionally charged it too much.
Nonetheless, had we paid more heed to his warnings, we might not have been seeing the rise of British Islamism, the BNP, or finding an entire social strata feeling disenfranchised and blaming at all on foreigners they see as getting preferential treatment.
So, Enoch Powell had useful things to say, but his way of saying them condemned him to be a political Cassandra, 40 years before his time.
What are the odds on him using the words, ‘Brown’, ‘fault, ‘ all his’.
What are the chances of him making reference to Brown at all?
If Brown is confident all will be well, he will want to be mentioned.
If he smells a nasty, he will want to be out of the room.
“Prudent” now priced at 1.5 - 2.0. You’re making money already Mike!
Police investigating the Lee Jasper corruption charges have made an arrest.
Link?
46. Would that count as one of the mentions of a night on the tiles?
BBC London news.
3 addresses raided and one arrest.
57 Wow, that sounds heavy man. Did the house raids take place at the customary 6.00am?
46. He’d get a laugh from me if he did that, but it’d be absolutely hysterical if he drunk his pigs blood and vodka, but found a female MP rather than Vince (whose Christian name was also “Mary”) and then collapsed in *her* lap screaming; “Bloody Mary!!!”.
Then passing out
Message to Mr. Mike Smithson:
*PLEASE* put me out of my misery and explain what “A Night On The Tiles” means!
As a Tory I can say I have never read Powells speech and probably never will. I think it important to read words before you comment on them. I understand the BBC said it was a much misunderstood speech. Was it? Who knows? Not I.
Seems its relevance today is trying to revive the ‘old Tories are all racist’ mantra after the other methods employed by the Labour left have fallen on stony ground.
‘Hazel and Harriet, screaming it like banchees has failed so let us be more interlectual and try a new way of combining the words immigration Tory and racist. That awfully nice Trevor Phillips bloke has been listening to Tory speeches so we need action now?!!!!!’.
54 61 yr old arrested on suspicion of money laundering. what a shock, not.
So not asked to attend the police station then? That suggests they were looking for evidence.
43. I think some of Powell’s concerns around multi-culturalism were legitimate and some of his prophecies accurate (though more in a Muslim context). I am also a strong believer in not judging history by today’s standards.
That said I felt uncomfortable re-reading the speech when it was kindly linked by a fellow blogger the other night and ultimately the tone, language and references were unhelpful and iresponsible at best.
60 - It’s the sum of the increase in duty on a packet of cigs, a bottle of wine, a pint of beer and a litre of spirits.
These are usually best bet individually at fixed odds rather than as a spread, since the likely range for each is so narrow.
Calm down lads!
The ‘night on the tiles’ thing is nothing to do with him saying the words - it’s how many ‘p’ he adds to the price of a pint of beer, a bottle of whisky, and one or two other things, all added up.
If the rest of you are unable to access Sporting Index at work, just send me the money and I’ll put it on for you!
Rob
61
You actually had some assorted lefties on the program Jenkins & Lester to name two admitting what a disaster multiculturalism had been.
‘We didn’t think it meant setting up seperate communities within communities,Sharia law or fundamentalism’.
Mike has obviously placed a side bet - on how many times he can get people to say “night on the tiles” in this thread….
O/T - have a look at the BBC message boards re the government’s proposals that teenagers should swear allegiance to the Queen.
47 pages of comments - about 90% of which are extremely critical. I don’t normally look at these boards so don’t know if this is an unusual response. But the scale and nature of the comments appears indicative of enormous dissatisfaction with both the idea and the government.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&forumID=4456&start=0&tstart=0&edition=1&ttl=20080311142928#paginator
Foot and Mouth - it was the Govt. wot dun it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7290078.stm
No surprises there then.
The idea that Powell, by giving the Rivers of Blood speech, made it impossible to have a reasonable and open debate about immigration is a complete fallacy.
It was impossible to have the debate BEFORE he spoke - hence the explosion of pent-up resentment from the 74% of the British public who, according to an opinion poll conducted at the time, agreed with him. The liberal establishment had effectively marginalised anyone who expressed any doubts about the wisdom of mass immigration. Remember that people were far more deferential towards their leaders forty years ago than they are today. There was an informal conspiracy between the two main parties to keep the issue off the agenda.
In fact, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that the catastrophic decline in trust for politicians and Parliament that Britain has suffered is the consequence of such unpatriotic behaviour.
– DEFECTION ALERT –
One for Mark Senior - Iain Dale reporting former LibDem Parliamentary candidate and councillor has defected to the Conservatives:
http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
Any one who wanted a reasoned debate on immigration would not have used a cliche like “Rivers of Blood”.
Powell was grandstanding - the local newspaper editor, a friend of Powell’s has told the story how he was tipped off in advance by Enoch that he was going to be inflammatory. he was setting himself up to be sacked.
Throughout the 70’s Powell said that the trade unions were not the problem but an effect of poor money supply management. Not sure you right wingers would go along with that
A study of Powell’s thought concluded that there was a consistent strain whereby he took an idea and followed it to a point where it was just plain stupid, but because he was so clever nobody really spotted it. He was convinced the Russians would invade India.
64. I find it interesting that many people who condemn moral relativism in modern society also think you shouldn’t judge history by today’s standards. A bit of contradiction there?
67. I think the term “multiculturalism” means so many different things to different people, it’s impossible to have a sensible discussion about it. If you use the right and far left’s definition of the term, most would agree it is an absurd philosophy. But if you use the centre-left’s definition it seems fairly reasonable.
Now cue outrage from partisans on both sides.
New polling projections up. I’m projecting a hung parliament.
http://thepoliticaltipster.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/britsh-polling-projections-hung-parliment/
73, could be wrong but I don’t think he actually used the infamous phrase. He quoted Virgil who spoke of the Tiber “foaming with blood.”
73. Barack Obama once described Alan Keyes as the sort of guy who would start from a rash thought, and then follow its logical conclusions “over a cliff”. I always thought that was a good phrase to sum up that type of thought process.
73. They got pretty close.
Remember Afghanistan?
re 73 he didn’t use the cliche “rivers of blood” at all - that’s the media for you.
Nor did Cameron say “Hug a Hoodie” but its all in the perception.
Nor did Callaghan say “Crisis, what crisis?”.
The so called ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech is available on the internet on several sites, and this is just one of them:
http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/rivers_blood2.html#Transcript
It contains some perceptive as well as sensationalist and rather dated, even in the 60s, Victorian didactics.
I hold no brief for this speech or its author, but I am struck by some of the timeless arguments which, in very similar form, you hear today - and I particularly am thinking of the recent polling and TV reports on it.
-Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: “If only,” they love to think, “if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen.”
- Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.
-the significance and consequences of an alien element introduced into a country or population are profoundly different according to whether that element is 1 per cent or 10 per cent.
-The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming.
- But while, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.
-They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted.
83 - Enoch was demonised and kicked out the Shadow Cabinet for one reason alone.
He dared to tell the truth.
72 - I didn’t realise we were actually allowed to have more than two Tory councillors here, this is most unusual.
65&66 My Guess would be:
Cigs 12p
Wine 15p
Beer 5p(5% ABV or above 10p
Spirits 20p
So that’s 52p or 57p if including surcharge on strong beer. I think Spreadfair would have to adopt the lower beer duty, so a sale at 52p looks marginally the better bet.
Nor did Thatcher say “There is no such thing as Society”
54 Time to top up on Boris maybe?
O.T
Todays Rasmussen Daily Tracker
Obama 48%
Clinton 41%
Beat Jack W to it….probably on his afternoon nap…he is after all 105
71 - immigration drives down the wages of the bottom 10% of the workforce. This makes things cheaper and more abundant for the top 90% but the bottom 10% get it in the neck. Politicians can’t come out and say this because it sounds too harsh - that’s the conspiracy of silence.
82. He also defended private individual’s right to discriminate on grounds of colour, and argued that the bulk of “Negroes” (and their descendantS) would never be willing to integrate - so the speech is a mixed bag.
66. etc.
“A night on the tiles” – idiom:
To be/go out on the tiles - to enjoy yourself by going to things like parties or dances. Do you fancy going out to a club? It’s ages since we had a night on the tiles.
Bizarre definition for the budget speech betting!!
We can’t have been the only ones who were confused.
Surely, Spreadfair should have rephrased: Total cumulative tax increase on cigarettes and alcohol? (pence)
78
As the Russian’s intentions in invading Afghanistan was to prevent a loony Islamic state on their border, perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea after all.
Looks like Ken has upset Porsche
http://tinyurl.com/2repyz
He could have added, ‘And Ferdinand could’nt design a tank to save his life, so there!’that would really have upset them.
89 and you such a supporter of the EU!
Global Financial Turbulence.
How have the Oafs of Allegiance been viewed by the teenage visitors to the site - or their parents/guardians. My view is that Goldsmith’s proposals are barking mad, and will do little to engage the young in politics. I would be very surprised if many 18 year olds would relish such a ceremony.
Socrates There is a lot in the speech that was distasteful at the time and more so with current mores in place.
I am fairly sure he was playing politics as he repeats the then Tory policies and cites them as solutions to the problems he perceives.
Was he trying to put himself out on a lim?. Perhaps it was a power play? A spoiler by a leadership loser?
However, I find the description of the working class position and that from other modern and respectable politicians, quite amazing.
86 - I think you’ll find she did:
Link here:
http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2008/02/tebbit-thatcherhtml/
86 - she did: see the third paragraph here:
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106689
Though from the way that sentence is usually quoted, you wouldn’t pick up the context that actually surrounds it in this extract.
The Chancellor must by now be well into the Law of Dinishing Returns as regards tobacco duty, with vast quantities of illegal imports being peddled, plus millions buying, ahem, for their personal consumption at 30%-40% discounts sur le continent. Fortunately yours truly gave up smoking 26 weeks and 1 day ago.
75. Matthew, are you sure you don’t have your Lab and Con seats reversed?
93- Is there a contradiction? I’m a big supporter of managed immigration from the EU and beyond.
79 This is what he said:
“Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.”
He described black children as “piccaninnies”.
Indeed much of the speech is a recital of cliches - lightly disguised by Powell’s ostentatious classical education.
Powell was trying to be sensationalist, and was involved in making the sort of appeal to voters that the Tories had made in Smethwick (although it is only fair to record that he referred to comments by Labour MP John Stonehouse with approval).
Readers who cannot spot that Powell’s speech is racist have a problem in my view.
91 - not really, if you hover over the i on Sporting Index’s site it’s very clear.
PfP - I would urge you not to play this market on the spreads - given the (probable) narrow range of possibilities a 3p spread equates to a very hefty margin.
102. Er.. like I said. I have no access to Spreadfair at work.
It should still be clearer. It is a confusing definition and could be much sharper.
88 Paul. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
103 - with respect, I think you’re wrong. It’s perfectly clear to anyone who might actually be intending to bet on it (i.e. on S.I.’s site) and it’s more than reasonable for them to give their markets slightly quirky names to assist in publicity (which is why they do these markets in the first place).
103 - and it’s not Spreadfair, it’s Sporting Index
14. When I was a student, Enoch Powell was invited to speak at my college. The Labour-controlled Student Union whipped up a vortex of hate against him. “No platform for racists and fascists!” they screeched as one. There were walk-outs, sit-ins, marches, the lot, accompanied, as usual, by the thinly-veiled threat of violence and disorder. Enoch, then 74 years old, decided not to come in the end.
After it had all blown over, I made discreet enquiries as to the subject of his speech, full expecting it to have been on the topic of Immigration…
It turned out he was intending to speak about “Embryo Research”…
I’ve never voted Labour and never will, because deep down they are anti-democracy, anti-individual and anti-thought….
101. How on earth can a quote from a Latin text few people would ever have heard of before the speech be called ‘a cliche’? You are being wildly anachronistic.
107 - Don’t be silly Rod - that was just kids using Powell as a focus for their youthful anger. You are being just as prejudiced with that statement. The genius of democracy is that all parties have contributed to make the UK what it is - and it’s a better place for it.
102 Aaron - I saw your earlier post on this and will certainly NOT be betting on “a night on the tiles”
Do you ever, dare I ask, recommend spread bets? I fully understand should you feel unable to answer this question. I feel very comfortable with my duo of “prudent mentions” (as per Mike) and “number of sips of water” and I commend these suggestions to the PBC “house”, involving as they do, very limited exposure.
“64. I find it interesting that many people who condemn moral relativism in modern society also think you shouldn’t judge history by today’s standards. A bit of contradiction there?”
I don’t think that there is a contradiction there. I think slavery is wrong, but it doesn’t follow that people who owned slaves in the past were bad people - it just never occurred to them to do otherwise.
108 - I think Peter was saying that the ideas were clichés even though the words were not (because the ideas were normally expressed by less articulate people). It is entirely within the proper meaning of the word “cliché” that it can cover ideas which have lost their novelty as well as words.
Some people on this and an earlier thread have commented on the immediate political effect of the Powell speech. In fact the political agenda was shaped by an earlier misquote, namely Harold Wilson’s infamous “Pound in your pocket” broadcast of November 1967 which followed the devaluation of the pound.
The 1968 Budget truly was quite something and effected the May 1968 local elections. Powell made his speech on April 20th (during the campaign), however on March 28th there were four by elections in which the Conservatives gained Acton, Meriden and Dudley and retained Warwick and Leamington - all in what could be regarded as landslides. The trend was there - Powell may have just added to it.
Regarding the dockers march; they were from the West India and London Docks, which were amongst the handful of areas that remained solidly Labour in May 1968. In fact looking at the film on Saturday’s broadcast I recognised the West India Dock wall, a small part of which remains today.
The three Conservative candidates in Lambeth’s Bishops ward produced a leaflet saying “We back Enoch, don’t you?” and secured publicity for personally delivering one to the Archbishop of Canterbury. They did win their seats
OT -Haven’t had chance to check out recent threds, but is anyone in Dear Old Blighty making book on the longevity (or rather shortgevity) of the gubernatorial career of ELLIOT SPITZER?
Revelations that Gov. Spitizer (D-NY) “apparently” violated the Mann Act by hiring a high-priced prostitute in New York then enjoying her services in Washington, DC is dominating (to put it mildly) US newspapers, airwaves, cyberspace & water cooler conversation.
Spitzer made his reputation as NY Attorney General by going after crooks on Wall Street. He also came down heavy on protitition rings among other things.
His exploits as AG earned him sky-high popularity in New York State and far beyond. Which he used to win a record-breaking victory as Governor of the Empire State.
As Governor, Spitzer has been a one-man disaster zone. In particular, he’s already on record as having abused his office in orchestrating irregular/illegal investigation of the GOP majority leader of the state sentate. Granted that the target is a notorious scumbutt, and the NY legislature is a stench in the nostrils of decent folk.
But Spitzer alreay demonstrated that he was a piss-poor Gov BEFORE the world learned that he is “Customer Number Nine”.
Spitzer will resign as Governor within days. In stark contrast to US Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana). The main difference being that only rightwing dipshites believe Vitter was much more than your typical hypocrite. Wheras everyone really did think that Elliot Spitzer was Elliot Ness.
BTW, just goes to show that state attorney generals make rotten gubernatorial nominees! This has been an axiom with seasoned politicos for many generations. They are notoriously rotten candidates, or governors, or both.
111. Can you not equally apply that thought to young kids in poor housing estates who get involved in drugs, crime and underage sex because that’s what everyone around them is doing?
(Personally, I don’t. I think circumstances, historical or otherwise may allow us to be more sympathetic to the perpertrator of a wrong, but it doesn’t excuse them. But I’m interested in others’ views.)
Prudent fans could back it at 12/1 to be the first out of the following phrases in the speech. You get your money back if he avoids them all..
Economic stability 6/4
Public ownership 5/1
Non domiciles/Non doms 5/1
Tap water 5/1
Golden rule 6/1
Credit crunch 6/1
Prudence/Prudent 12/1
Gas guzzling 16/1
Fit for purpose 20/1
Binge Drinking 25/1
Plastic bags 33/1
Nationalisation 50/1
114. The most advantageous thing about this is that it means the media are going to stop bothering about hypothetical wrongdoings regarding the Obama-Rezko connection when they have a genuine political scandal on their hands.
110 - Spread bets become better value the wider the range of possible outcomes (though of course the risk increases too).
Outcomes such as Innings Runs in cricket or Total Points in rugby can make excellent spread bets - if your nerve can take it
In the political sphere they are an obvious choice for taking a view on seat totals as well - but it’s hard to trade in and out of them if you’re paying the spread every time.
113 Wasn’t the 1968 election the one John Major became a Lambeth councillor in? I assume it wasn’t for the same ward..
114 - One thing that personally burns my hindquarters, is the way disgraced politicos always insist (at least in recent decades) in dragging their spouses on to the stage to share in their public humiliation.
Heck, why didn’t Elliot Spitzer have his teenage daughters join in the fun along with their mom? Do doubt a staff oversight.
On this note, the Spitzer affair (or rather one night stand) is NOT good news for Hillary Clinton.
Didn’t say it was crushingly bad. Just not good.
115 It’s a mitigating factor, certainly. However, once a society defines a particular act as illegal, it can’t allow bad environment/upbrining to become an excuse for it.
WRT historical figures, I think it’s perfectly fair to argue that they were good or bad people by reference to the standards of the time and place in which they lived, but I think it would be unfair and anachronistic to do so by our standards.
119. Just googled it a bit better.. John Major was elected in Ferndale ward,. Sir George Young was elected in Claphan Town ward in the same election…
Odd to think of a tory majority in Lambeth.
101 I think the reference to ‘piccaninnies’ was a quote from a correspondent. We’ll never have a sensible discussion about immigration if anyone who raises the issue is denounced as a racist. The distance between the political correctness of the elite and the views of the ordinary voter were apparent even in 1970. This widening gap goes a long way to explaining the present disillusion with politics and politicians.
Powell saw a situation developing which could, he believed, cause problems in the future. He might have been wrong but the point needs to be argued not greeted with hysteria. Actually, compared with the vitriolic class hatred pedalled by some in the 1970s, Powell was generally circumspect in his descriptions of the possible results of immigration.
120 I’m waiting for the day when one of them brings the hooker on stage and says “C’mon guys - I mean - who amongst you wouldn’t have?”
“Heck, why didn’t Elliot Spitzer have his teenage daughters join in the fun along with their mom? ”
Did he not do precisely that?
I was particularly amused to learn that he’d expressed his particular abhorrence for prostitution in one of his court cases. I just don’t know why politicians set themselves up for a fall in this way.
122. It’s changed a bit since then…
116 Generous of Ladbrokes to include “Prudence” as well as “Prudent” - I wonder if Sporting are operating on the same basis?
108 As 112 says, the ideas were cliches well before he used them in this speech.
101. Then quite a few must have had a problem. Certainly the the problem could be described as ‘racial’ on the simple expedient that there was a social difference between the easily identifiable groups, the behaviour of whom, a lot of indigenous people disliked. You cannot expect a transfer of mass culture without friction. Powell spoke what a lot of people thought and, no doubt, still do.
Are people saying that had he not given this speech, we would, now, questioning immigration, not be condemned as ‘racist’?
122 - Up until the 1990s, the Tories being the largest party Lambeth in a good year was not implausible, as long as the party could get a strong vote in wards in Clapham, Streatham and Norwood and the Alliance/LDs could threaten Labour in north Lambeth. But the LDs have basically cut the party’s prospects down to the Dulwich bordaers and Clapham.
127 Answering my own question - presumably not, since there will be sellers of this market also.
Reagrding Lambeth in 1968, the three winners in Bishops were: Alan James Cruden Gray, Norman Frederick Epps and David Frederick Renwick.
Ferndale was: Guy Reginald Jack Allnut, Jeanne Eileen Langley and John Major
Clapham Town was: Terry Richard Cunnew, Alan Philip Pfaff and George Samuel Knatchbull Young.
The final margin was Conservative; 57 and Labour; 3 (Angell ward)
119/122/130.
Agreed- one of the mor interesting facets of London politics has been the Tories decline and the LDs rise here.
Incidentally, since I raised the topic of John Major’s election to lambeth at the same time some tory candidates there were running a “powell wa right campaign” I should also say that the record shows that he opposed Powell’s rivers of blood speech at the time, according to no less an authoirty than Ken Livingstone.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/may/04/uk.localelections20061
So kudos to JM there!
112. Please explain how the idea behind the ‘river tiber’ reference was a cliche, please.
The word “picaninny” is derived from the Portuguese pequeninho, meaning small child. It was commonly applied by black people to their own children, and cognates of the word are still used by indigenous people around the world..
Nothing offensive about it at all…
121. What about people like Joseph Goebbels and his wife, who passionately believed they were saving their noble race and their country from Jews? They were surely doing what they believed to be right. The same goes for Mohammed Atta and the 9/11 attackers, who even sacrified themselves for what they thought was God’s will? Were they good people by reference to the standards of the time and place in which they lived?
John Major and Ken Livingstone have maintained an amicable relationship from their time in Lambeth politics together.
Major was always very careful on race relations; it’s interesting to note the relative lack of prominence to issues concerned with immigration in the Conservative campaigns of 1992 and 1997, compared to other examples before and after that time.
120 - The one good thing Little Britain did (and I think it has hurt standards of sketch comedy) is to make that more difficult in Britain. The character of Sir Norman Fry stepped out to his garden gate every week to give increasingly ludicrous for the compromising positions in which he had been found, surrounded by his uncomfortable-looking wife and kids. The comparisons make it difficult to do now - Mellor was the classic on which Fry is obviously based but it used to be quite common.
135. Word meanings evolve over time, and in British society by the time of his speech the term had become an offensive term of abuse, due to its connections with slavery. Surely you can recognise this Rod.
re 109 as one who’s been shouted down in my time, physically attacked at student union meetings, and even denied entrance to my house by the baying mob because one of my neighbours happened to be having the South African ambassador to tea, why is it that you never see right wing students trying to silence free speech?
As Rod that is again one reason why I’ll never vote Labour. God knows we’ve had enough repressive legislation from this lot in the last 10 years.
I have just read the GUardian article. Sir Michael was not well researched. The election was May 9th; Cllr Major could scarcely have attacked the Powell speech before being elected.
Likewise Labour retained four Boroughs (not three) in 1968; Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Barking. It can be argued that they retained Newham on the casting vote of the Mayor until the Aldermanic elections and in Southwark the Conservatives polled about 54% of the vote but won just 27 seats.
The attack on the speech came at the July council meeting, following a near riot in London arranged by the Immigration Control Association, which morphed into the National Front.
Both John Major and the leader, Bernard Perkins, tore into this march and those that had organised and provoked it. That was the meeting Livingstone remembers.
Anyone wishing to be on the length of the Cancellor’s budget speech should be aware that Sporting’s spread is 56-58 minutes, two minutes longer than IG’s 54-56 minutes.
139. And who decides what is ‘offensive’, exactly?
Do we have to hang on every decision on such matters by self-appointed ‘community spokespeople’ like Mr. Jasper? We’ve seen where that leads..baa-baa green sheep, trying to ban certain kinds of marmalade etc…and more seriously the pernicious doctrine of ‘institutional racsim’.
139. You talk such tosh… Powell spoke in 1968, ten years before the Black and White Minstrel show ended its run, at a time that I and most other children I knew went to bed innocently snuggled up to a “golliwog”, after reading a chapter of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which picaninnies feature prominently….
105/106. Get a life Aaron. Quite a few of us didn’t know what it meant.
Like I said: I DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO IT AT WORK. LIKE *MANY* OF US.
Also, drop the petit pedantry. It makes you look like a tw*t.
The Sporting Index rule for the market on “Prudent” says that “Any incidence of the word or variation will count”
I take that to mean that prudence is included. What about a double negative as in “It would be imprudent for us not to…”?
69
I find The Oath Of Allegiance to the Queen a bit silly. About 30% of Labour MPs are republicans and would never swear it. And of course it would never work in N Ireland.
(You could not make it up)
139. Indeed.
It is now almost impossible to use the word “Gay” in its traditional context without getting a round of sniggers, or being accused of homophobic abuse.
Also, can anyone name a single girl who’s been named “Fanny” in the last 20 years?
Due to its (ahem) colloquial meaning, I imagine no parent would christening their child thus. The bullying at school would be horrendous.
Anyway, interesting how social trends can make words taboo.
141. That’s a pretty bad performance in 1968 from Labour. Gives a little perspective to the London assembly election and last years locals!
Thanks for the clarity on JM. I did wonder about how John Major could speak out against Powell at the town hall before the election, but thought it might have been a pre election meeting. either way, he emerges with credit, imo.
125 “I was particularly amused to learn that he’d expressed his particular abhorrence for prostitution in one of his court cases. I just don’t know why politicians set themselves up for a fall in this way.”
And closer to home, we can see that Harriet’s plan to criminalize the buying of sex is similarly setting up New Labour for a fall.
121
The Crusaders were by the Christian standards of the time (even blessed by the Pope) doing God’s work by killing torturing raping and generally maltreating Muslims. By Muslim standards they were of course evil.
So which standard of the time do you choose?
147. Except to take up office as an MP!
The only ones who haven’t, as far as I’m aware, are Sinn Fein. No?
143. Something is offensive if it offends a large group of people. your slippery slope argument is like saying calls for more law and order enforcement ends in fascism.
144. Half a decade after Martin Luther King’s march on Washington proclaimed all men should be considered equal, and he was using stereotyped images of picanninnies grinning from ear to ear. I can tell you that black people at the time would have been offended, and as Powell had so many black constituents he should have been aware of this. Just because other racism existed at the time does not mean that it hadn’t become offesnvie yet.
136 By the standards of their time and place, both Goebbels and Mohammed Atta behaved wrongly.
147 - Those Labour MPs already do swear such an oath to enter Parliament in the first place. I’m not a fan of this particular proposal, but allegiance to the Crown should be necessary for all such oaths (except in particular cases like NI, and even then its arguable). Refusing to do so would be silly and undermine us as nation, in the same way as Franch and German royalists would be undermining their nations if they refused to swear allegiance to their republics.
In 1968, Labour lost 50 out of 60 seats in Islington and elsewhere every seat in Birmingham and Leicester. I know they lost the Ordsall ward of Salford by a single vote and assume they lost everything there as well.
Nowadays it is less of a two party battle.
151 Rape and murder were wrong even by the standards of the day (though widespread). In his history of the Crusades, Runciman pointed out that some contemporaries were appalled by the kind of slaughter that took place when the Crusaders took Jerusalem.
154. Are you sure? National strength and anti-semitism were considered positive things by the bulk of Germans post WWI. Violent strikes against Americans are considered positive in large swathes of the Muslim world.
153. Wasn’t ‘ordnung muss sein’ a fascist slogan?
143
I lived through Powell’s speech. It was the time when Birmingham landladies had signs outside saying “no Irish or blacks”.
To me at the time Powell was a racist. He spoke on a sensitive subject using intemperate langauge. He wanted to get attention.
And as a result he achieved nothing as a politician. Nothing. He died a failure.
And at that time the Conservative Party in Smethwick had a slogan “If you want a nigger for your neighbour, vote Labour”.
I say no more.
152. I think Tony Benn said he was taking it under protest and Tony Banks crossed his fingers behind his back!