So where does Gord stand now?
June 12th, 2008
Does the DUP deal create a hostage to fortune?
Gordon has pulled off a victory when all seemed lost and this must take the pressure of him for the time being. My 5/1 and 6/1 bets on him not surviving 2008 look like losers.
But Labour might have stored up a real problem in the “bribes” that were extracted out of the government by the DUP in exchange for their votes. A major part of Labour general election rhetoric was to come down heavily on any form of increased spending proposed by the Tories - “where’s the money coming from?” minister would ask.
The power of that argument started to look a bit thin after the £2.7b cost to deal with the 10 pence change. The extra spending in Northern Ireland will now be added to the list.
-
On a more general level it gives us an idea of what live in a hung parliament might be like. Each major vote could be like the “42 day” one with the possibility of minor parties being bought off in deals like the one the DUP secured.
Perhaps the big message of last night is that Gord is going to fight like crazy to keep the job he sought after for so long. Initially that might involve beating off challenges to his leadership in his own party and then there is the coming battle with Cameron’s Tories. The main betting markets are here.
General Election party leaders betting
Gordon’s departure date betting
General Election most seats betting
Mike Smithson
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Surely “Tyrant or Blunderer?” would be the more appropriate question.
A point of information - I know the Russians can only lock people up for five days without charge. Does even Mugabe claim the right to lock people up for 42 days without charge?
o/tBreaking Funny News
–> Obama will not be the first US black President!!!
From The Colbert Report, Section Threat Down, Treat #1: “Secret Negro President”:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=safari&rls=fr&q=negro%20warren%20harding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#
I think the Tories will be glad Gordon seems to be scraping by. We don’t want him to go when a landslide’s on the cards
Irish Referendum on Lisbon Treaty
A coverage will be available here:
http://www.ireland.com/focus/thelisbontreaty
“Results from the count centres will be updated live throughout the day.”
Can I suggest that those in favour of 42 days without charge refrain from posting here for the next six weeks - just so they understand what a very long time it is.
Please bear with me ladies; I wish to carry out a scientific poll. How many eurosceptics are metal fans.For example: metallica, megadeth, kyuss, slayer … Basically thrash metal. Come on, you know its the best shit out there, lets have some confessions.
Maybe the real question is why? All this effort, all this money, all the political capital to secure 42 days: what’s the point? Does Brown imagine there is some large bloc of hitherto uncommitted voters who have been crying out for this measure?
No. Like every Brownite stunt that has damaged Labour, from the election that never was to the visit of Lady Thatcher to Number Ten, it started life as a wheeze to discomfort the Tories, in this case by portraying them as soft on terrorism.
When you are in a hole, stop digging.
Disraeli
I see it reported that considerable concessions have been offered to the DUP in order to get them to vote with the Government on the infamous “42 days” proposal.
It just shows how minor parties can get undue influence, when the Government cannot automatically command a majority in the House.
I instinctively support a fairer voting system, but incidents like these sometimes make me wonder at the prospect of PR condemning us to perpetual coalitions and wheeler-dealing. (I know that FPTP can’t guarentee majority government either - it just makes it more likely)
“Undue” influence? It is not undue, it is (or would be under PR) entirely “due”.
Gabble
It’s a victory for the people and a defeat for the terrorists.
No - it’s exactly the opposite.
Robin Wiggs
Sad news from Henley:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7447697.stm
The Miss Great Britain Party have shot themselves in the foot by standing 2 candidates!
Who wants to tell them:
a) it is not a multi-member ward;
b) you only submit the reserve nomination papers if the returning officer rejects your first set
What a pair of t*ts.
But they did it deliberately!
the old codger
After reading all the comments on this thread mostly against the idea of the 42 days proposal, I have to wonder why no weight has been given to a recent poll of public opinion where 69% were in favour of an extension to 42 days.
Because the general public is mostly a load of ignorant illogical idiots.
I was demonstrating in Parliament Square for most of the afternoon with my big yellow placard which said
NO
42
and I was disappointed to find that there was not a big crowd of other protesters apart from Brian Haw and his usual small group of supporters. The most rigorous intellectual contribution to the debate was a well-constructed argument by a passing van driver, who shouted out “Do you want to be bloody blown up?!?”
9 — that is a good argument.
Chris A, in the thread before last (I’ve had a very busy night at work!) wrote:
Would you give up 6 weeks of your life being arbitrarily detained without knowing the charges against you and having no news of your family and loved ones for £42,000?
No, of course not. That’s why I’ve never applied to be a contestant on Big Brother…
How much more of our money will this desperate PM spend to hang on to power? Once the facts come out of the wash there will be a load of bad press. Your 6/1 might still be safe Mike. It’s only June!
9: A salient reminder of the level of debate and intelligence in the populus. This is why NuLab are not at zero in the polls, the moron vote is holding up well. This country is at times a truly depressing place.
Does Ireland start counting at c.9am on Friday or at c. 10pm on Thursday?
9- I was involved in a debate Tuesday night on this whole point. Someone used the exact formulation of “Do you want to be blown up?”. My answer on that point was that whilst I didn’t want to be blown up I would far rather run the risk and be free than the alternative. I pointed out that unfree peoples are generally more secure, as their manacles and fetters attest. I think though that far too many people are inferring guilt by accusation in terms of terrorism. Laws like this 42 days only fuel that inference and actually what we are saying is that those accused of terrorism are slightly less innocent until proven otherwise than those accused of other crimes. The other problem is that these measures will remain active and in force until someone tries to up them or scrap them. The sun is beginning to set on our liberty because it will not set on these provisions.
15: Too many long words for your audience I think!
15. Passing the 42-day limit will make the public LESS safe and will make terrorsit attacks MORE likely. That van driver and his ilk seem to think that the law on detaining people without charge will only apply to “other people” and not themselves.
15
“Laws like this 42 days only fuel that inference and actually what we are saying is that those accused of terrorism are slightly less innocent until proven otherwise than those accused of other crimes.”
I hope you distinguished criminality from terroristic activity (which is political).
A terrorist is not a criminal, it is a political revolutionnary (which is much more dangerous for the State). This is why the police and the army shall treat it (this juridical status) differently.
8
I dont believe 69% are in favour, it depends how the question is asked.
6. Wtf?
Mattew Parris is suggesting DC should consider no confidence vote.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article4116312.ece
I’m not sure it set out to be but this is a very funny thread; proving the class levels of posting you get on pb.com; well done Mike, team and posters!
A lot of talk on the previous thread about the actual power of the DUP in this situation. This is a fundamental objection to the premise behind all calls for what proponents call “Proportional Representation”. Power within any authority is NOT Proportional to the number of members. With a working majority of two or three on a Local Authority the flakiest members are always the most powerful. Principled members are invariably ignored because their votes can be relied upon. A few years ago I saw one member repeatedly get a senior outside LGA appointment simply so votes could be won at home.
When Lib Dems used to call for proportional representation for the 20% who voted for them in reality they wanted nothing of the sort. What they wanted was for the 20% to permanently dictate policy to the other 80%. 80% would be disenfranchised for long periods.
Of course it wouldn’t have worked, non Lib Dems would work together. I have seen that happen and boy do you get some vitriol in the next copies of Focus. As far as they are concerned working together means doing what they alone want.
If the DUP have got some lasting benefits for Northern Ireland rather than party advantage then their electorate will rightly reward them. Otherwise there might be a UUU revival. I guess there are few here who could answer that as yet.
We must remember that most of the time NI is ignored by the rest of Westminster and it was the right thing for their MPs to take advantage of a situation which gave them short-term power equvilent to Labour and Tory backbenchers.
15
I read the last post on his blog, and understand now that James Burdett did not integrate into his thinking the conceptual difference between:
–the juridico-political status of : a) a terrorist detainee (which is a kind of apatrid Prisonner of War); v. b) a criminal (a citizen breaking the law with not political end).
This difference between the 2 status coincides with that between :
–a prison (for criminals) and
–a concentration camp like Gitmo (for terrorists).
No debate can make sense which does not run along those two very different and disjunctive lines of forces.
On the basis that all publicity is good publicity, Nick Palmer will be adding Simon Carr from today’s Indy to his Christmas card list:
“At the higher end of the debate, Nick Palmer seemed to declare himself for the rebels when he said: “I’m not going to support unprincipled opportunism!” It would have been a spectacular rebel gain as Mr Palmer would eat his own feet if the whips asked him to.”
14 — J. Loony
“The votes will be counted on Friday at centres in 43 constituencies. At the completion of each count, each local returning officer will inform the referendum returning officer, who will be based at St Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle, of the result from their constituencies.
The referendum returning officer will tot the constituency result and declare the overall result, which should be known by late afternoon.”
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0612/breaking2.htm
6. I am a eurosceptic. A bit of stoner metal dioes no harm.
Gordon’s position is still difficult and I do not believe this vote helps it much. All it does is give some air but the same fundamentals that have Labour and him on the rack are still there.
“Because the general public is mostly a load of ignorant illogical idiots.”
Typical islamo-socialist left-winging assumption about everything political.
18. “A terrorist is not a criminal, it is a political revolutionnary” wrong, wrong , wrong. As soon as you go down this road with the rule of law the terrorists have won already.
Anyone who uses terrorism - threat or fear to achieve their ends- is a criminal just as surely a Al Capone was, and Mugabe is; just because they believe their criminal activity has a higher purpose does not make it so.
And that is the fatal flaw with the 42 days detention, just as internment legitimised the militias in Northern Ireland and encouraged far greater destruction and death later on so introducing ’special’ laws for terrorists does the same thing now.
3: Benny - ah! That will be why the Tories looked so pleased and were congratulating the DUP last night?
To give a serious answer, I don’t think a defeat would have led to a leadership change - just weakened the Government. The downside of a narrow win is that it keeps in the news an issue that some are strongly against and I don’t think supporters care much about. But - leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the issue, on which we shan’t agree - it’s generally better to win a Parliamentary vote. And the limited public interest cuts both ways - if the Opposition parties make it a big campaign theme in the coming months, they won’t find much resonance, especially as the Tory promise to repeal was hedged (we’ll get rid of it unless circumstances are such that we shouldn’t).
We still haven’t heard from Nick “how much are my principles worth, that’ll do nicely” Palmer on the subject of this concession he wrought from Gordo.
According to the Member for Broxtowe himself, in a dazzling act of freedom-loving derring-do, equivalent to the last stand at the Alamo, he refused to vote with Gordon unless the government agreed to give anyone interned under the new law a bit of cash, and some new DVDs, to make up for losing their 1000 year old rights under Magna Carta.
What we still need to know is: how Gordon, Mohammad and Nick came up with the sum of “£3000 a day”.
How did you do that Nick? How did you put a price on your fundamental beliefs? What’s the method? How do you put a sticker on liberty? Did Gordon offer cashback?
If lots of people get arrested at once, and interned together, does the government get a discount? And what about summer sales, does the price of detention without trial go down in July?
And how did you reach that precise sum of £3000 a day? Did you consider possibly offering people interned without trial the sum of £4 a week and a packet of fags? Maybe you should have gone for £2999.99, as that sounds less expensive to the voter.
Really. We want to know. How did you arrive at this exact sum?
Philosophers and thinkers through the ages have been wondering this question: what price liberty. But Nick Palmer and Gordon Brown have finally solved the question - the price of liberty is equivalent to a second hand Ford Mondeo, with sunroof.
29
If Mugabe is actually an actual tyrant, then he can’t be a criminal since he would be the living Law in his own sovereign territory.
And your argument is ludicrous:
I’m wrong, ’cause if i’m right, “the terrorists have won already”.
This is low.
Scottish Presbyterian makes deal with Northern Irish Presbyterians Shock! Ever been to an “Old Firm” derby?
Phillipe - speaking as someone who was reading libertarian literature at least 10 years before Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher - you are a disgrace! The more of your posts I read the more I fail to separate the word “fanaticism” from “libertarian”(as you interpret it).
Although I don’t agree with this “ideology” I think American “libertarianism” is a respectable and thought provoking challenge to Party-blinkered and parochial European thinking and does not deserve to be saddled with your neo-Cons rubbish.
33 — What rubbish?
30- I think Nick hits the nail on the head here. The labour parliamentary party collectively took the view that a defeat would have weakened the party rather than led directly to regime change.
Gordo would have lived to fight another day whatever happened last night. He had made that clear.
The underlying basics still haven’t changed- the Labour party have 2 opportunities internally to rid themselves of Brown- autumn/ next May.
In my view they will seize one of them as the alternative becomes increasingly unpalatable- the Labour party equivalent of The Somme if Gordon is still in charge to lead his troops over the line in 2010.
To answer the question posed by the thread
So where does Gordon stand now?
IMHO in a very precarious position with daily reports of NuLabour incompetence and mismanagement of our economy.
The latest example
Shelved asylum centre cost £29m
The Home Office has been criticised by a group of MPs for spending £29m on an asylum accommodation centre which was never even built.
Over £6m was paid to consultants for work on the proposed site at Bicester, in Oxfordshire, a report has revealed.
A termination fee of almost £8m was also paid to the contractor when the scheme was cancelled.
It said there had been a “startling absence of common sense” in the Home Office’s preparation for the project.
The report said a pair of consultants were paid more than £1.1m between them for less than three years’ work.
The Commons’ all-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reviewed an auditor’s report on the scheme which was launched by former home secretary David Blunkett in 2001.
When NuLabour trail in a poor third in the next set of opinion polls then pose the question again please
With nearly 40 Labour MPs bitterly opposed to Brown’s move there will probably be twice that number who voted for it just to give Brown “one last chance” rather than vote according to their principles.
Brown will have used up all the goodwill that he previously had with this group. All it will take is one further dramatic slide and then I believe that they will act.
Maybe a 19 point poll for Labour in Yougov?
31- “the price of liberty is equivalent to a second hand Ford Mondeo, with sunroof”.
seanT-I recently had to pay for my beloved Mondeo to be taken off the road and scraped. Am still grieving after a very faithful love affair that has lasted 9 years. The old girl never gave up on me once- 130k on the clock, until her last breath last week. The pain was starting to subside, until your rather callous comments about Mondeo’s.
Crushingly poor coverage for Brown and Labour this morning, all the way across the newspaper spectrum - withering scorn from the Guardian and the Indy, AND the Times and the Telegraph.
Steve Richards in the Indy is particularly acute.
And the excellent Times editorial should be read by Mister Palmer, as it goes right to the heart of why Palmer’s Payments are so utterly absurd and disgraceful.
Here’s a flavour of the Times editorial:
“The reality this morning is a prime minister willing to erode ancient freedoms with cataclysmic threats to shore up his position; a government willing to write unworkable legislation for the sake of a hollow political gesture; and MPs on both sides of the aisle demeaned by the worst sort of horse trading for their support. The currency of Parliament is the integrity of its Members. It has seldom been so wilfully devalued.”
The rest of it is here: have a peek, Nick.
http://tinyurl.com/5pf2qb
38.
“old girl never gave up on me once”
Can seanT say the same? Ask Mariella!
39. Reminds of the dreadful Budget, seen as a masterpiece initially, and then the full horror of its impact resulting in dreadful newspaper headlines.
The overwhelming majority of people get their news and perspective from the mainstream media. The BBC is very important in this, they can set and run the agenda in a way the Daily Mail could only ever dream of.
If the media is united in generally considering this to be a disaster for the government, it by its nature becomes one, even if people instinctively are quite keen at locking dodgy looking people with beards up for 42 days without charge.
Who would have thought that the stoutest defenders of the rights of Islamic Terrorists would be the Consevatives? Why it it seems like only three years ago that Michael Howard in his war against Gypsies threatened to abolish the ‘Human Rights Act’.
To those cynics who want to know why Cameron didn’t mobilize his troops with such gusto when Abu Hamza was being imprisoned unlawfully I would remind them that there are only so many causes one Party leader can take up and at the time he was fully occupied with the upsetting case of the three millionaire fraudulent bankers-all family men- who were being sent to face US justice.
9, JohnLoony,
You’re in the Metro free newspaper (your picture with your sign is on page 4)
42. The HRA has very little to do with ancient english liberty.
The ECHR was only signed by the UK as a good example to those nearby nations who had a had a very recent history of gassing jews and dissidents.
The idea that our nation is now freer, then say twenty years ago since the introduction of the HRA is absurd.
Human Rights are what a Government ‘awards’ you, when it has taken away your freedoms.
Human Rights are given on the terms of the Government, and are based on defining what you are ‘allowed’ to do. Freedoms are yours as a born Briton, given by God, the State has to justify its restrictions, as you are free to anything you wish except that proscribed in law.
jim naughtie refered to the “unelected” house of lords when interviewing lord goldsmith this morning.
The H of L has always been ‘unelected’, unless you elected to make donations to political parties.
Next on Radio 4, traces of ursine excreta have been found adjacent to woods.
Anger turned to laughter when Simon Carr ridiculed the vote as “a great victory in the end for the Northern Ireland Water Board”.
Big belly laugh. That feels a lot better. Blood pressure reducing.
I don’t think a defeat would have led to a leadership change - just weakened the Government.
The Government is weakened anyway, only marginally less so than if the vote had been lost.
35 Tyson - shouldn’t you be locked up by now? I left a whole portfolio of evidence on a Blackpool tram - I had expected you to have been whisked away in the small hours.
The Reason of State v. the Rule of Law
“All Writers on the Science of Policy are agreed, and they agree with Experience, that all Governments must frequently infringe the Rules of Justice to support themselves; that Truth must give way to Dissimulation; Honesty to Convenience;and Humanity itself to the reigning Interest. The Whole of this Mystery of Iniquity is called the Reason of State. It is a Reason, which I own I cannot penetrate. What Sort of a Protection is this of the general Right, that is maintained by infringing the Rights of Particulars? What sort of Justice is this, which is inforced by Breaches of its own Laws? These Paradoxes I leave to be solved by the able heads of Legislators and Politicians.”
Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=850&layout=html
If Roger in post 42 really works for this Government or the Labour Party, then he is amply demonstrating just how addled the thinking now is within those anywhere near even the periphery of the centre of influence.
Some very good comments on here already, ranging from ‘Cumbria’s astute observations at [23] about where power really lies in a hung parliament (or at least, when there’s a very tight vote), to Marcus’ rebuttal at [29] of Phillipe’s distinction between criminals and terrorists, to James’ post at [15] on the nature and consequences of the legislation itself.
I agree with Mike’s assessment in the intro that Brown will see out this year, and in fact I believe he will make it through to 2010 as leader of the Labour Party and as PM. Yesterday offered a prime opportunity for backbench MP’s to put a shot across Brown’s bows to stop the silly political stunts - and that is what this is - and get on with the boring but necessary business of governing.
The opportunity was there because I would be surprised (and very disappointed) if a lot of Labour MPs did not have at least very mixed feelings about the clause they were voting on. They could, in good conscience, have voted it down in the name of civil liberties, human rights and various other things the left has generally been pretty keen on. They didn’t. That shows, and Nick’s post at [30] further emphasises the point, that hanging together is seen by so many members of the PLP as of primary importance that it not only trumps prinicples that they would certainly have found in opposition (and in many cases did have, in the 1990s and before), but demonstrates that there is quite simply no ‘Gordon Must Go’ movement.
The other group who might have been tempted to make a stand on this issue are those members of the cabinet who are concerned about the polls and have little faith that Brown can lead Labour out of the deficit. Perhaps such a group does not exist, but if it does, then a resignation on this principle would be a fine marker to put down. But Labour cabinet ministers very rarely do resignations on principle. IIRC, there has been only one since 1997: Robin Cook. Even Clare Short dithered so long she was eventually dismissed.
Now that this has gone through without any resignations and without defeat, it will be harder to make any future rebellion look unpolitical (in party terms). Brown has the cabinet and a very significant proportion of the PLP behind him: he is safe at least until the electorate gets its chance to have a say.
39. Sean - do you really suppose Nick Palmer gives a t*ss about either Britain’s ancient liberties or the standing of parliament? The teenage revolutionary within him will be privately exulting at the degraded state of both, today.
42 When was Abu Hamza Al-Masri imprisoned unlawfully?
48. Is the government really not weakened anyway, by the farce of last night? Gordon and his party are now, without question, held in even more contempt than before (check the broadsheets - all of them).
Difficult to see how being despised and ridiculed actually “strengthens” the government. Unless strength is defined, in the narrowest of ways, as to mean - “clinging on to power at all costs”.
The 42 days narrative will now evolve into Falkender and Goldsmith, Blairites both, savaging the proposals in the Lords.
That’s good for Brown and Labour…how?
52
“Phillipe’s distinction between criminals and terrorists”
It is not mine; it is that of Political Science since at least Machiavelli.
39. Ouch! Nice to see so many people seeing through the scheming ones political games.
While all this is going on, I think YouGov will be polling for this weekends Sunday Times - Wouldn’t it be fun if Labour dropped below the Lib-Dems in this poll?
Have there been any more details of the papers “accidently” left on the train. All very suss if you ask me.
52 — and Marcus dit not “rebut” it; he only wrote:
You are wrong, coze if you’re right, then the terrorists win.
Which is as unfair an “argument” as it is immoral, acceptable only to those of fascistic tendency.
WHERE’S GUY FAWKES WHEN YOU NEED HIM!
Good day one & all !!!!
58, I wish that Yougov has Labour under 20 and below the Lib Dems.
I fear that with the Sun’s backing, Labour will actually improve to close to 30.
Ladbrokes can today report the first bet laid on Nick Palmer as Next Labour Party Leader. We are holding the 500/1 for the time being.
57. If you subscribe to it, it is yours, irrespective of whether or not someone else thought of it first: you are still making that distinction.
And it’s still an invalid one, especially in a liberal democracy. In an authoritarian state, where there is no outlet for dissenting voices (as was indeed the case for the majority of people in the majority of states in Machiavelli’s time), in certain circumstances, political violence can be justified; in a country where minorities have the rights to protest, argue their case, stand for election and seek judicial review, there is never any such justification: in these countries, terrorist activity is nothing more than criminal. Lawmakers who think otherwise elevate the criminals to a status they the criminals themselves desire but do not deserve.
53-His aim may be to set up the Gulag system in the UK so beloved of his revolutioanry youth.
In this case, 42 days being just the beginning. When will the PCIA be set up?
After hearing Lord Carlile on the Today programme this morning I’m astounded how he can call himself a Liberal Democrat. About time Nick Clegg withdrew the whip from him?
#55 Is the government really not weakened anyway…
I think that’s what I said @48.
62. Don’t be so defeatest. I think in the grad scheme this vote will do nothing to inprove Labours polling.
The Sun’s editorial today is sick inducing though, I have to admit. Given this will probably be an issue up to and including a general election, It’ll be interesting to see how The Sun square their support of 42 days with their inevitable switch to supporting the Conservatives. It’ll give everyone a laugh to see their contortions.
25 I have always thought Simon Carr a very astute man.
56. It’s going to be amusing seeing the massed ranks of elevated Labour luvvies (Kennedy, Bragg et al.) queueing up to vote this bill down. Did they really think this was what they were letting themselves in for, when they organised all those lavish fundraising dinners?
A Labour government now appealing in the most crass way possible to a narrow stratum of ill-educated, borderline racist white van men?
63 was it Mike who placed the bet? If so we should refer to the member for Broxtowe in future as Barak O’Palmer
Can I suggest that anyone who wants to read what David Davis described as “one of the finest speeches I have heard since being elected to the House of Commons” goes to Hansard here.
Diane Abbott gets to the root of most of the problems with 42 days and the cynical use of this bill by Gordon Brown. As she said near the end of the speech “…They have had my son for five weeks and nobody will tell me why”, what do Ministers suggest I tell them about a measure that has been brought in only for short-term political convenience?”
64 — I feel like I’m writing to a semi-blind guy.
The pointI was making was not about the justification of violence.
It had nothing to do with the legitimation of the use of force by one group or another.
Can’t you read?
It was only, and clearly (if I may add) –> about the difference between the juridico-political status of a) a criminal and of b) a terrorist.
Those are differents, and shan’t be confused.
That’s it. And learn to read.
It’s very interesting to compare last night’s division lists with the leaked report from Labour whips many months ago:
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/whiplistnew.pdf
It shows just how many people the government bought off. What were their prices, I wonder?
New Rasmussen poll for Washington State :
McCain 35% .. Obama 53%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/washington/election_2008_washington_presidential_election
66 ChrisA. Yes Lord Carlile should form his own Illiberal Democrat party.
ChrisA “About time Nick Clegg withdrew the whip from him?”
Does Clegg have any authority over the Lib Dem peers?
42 Roger that’s stupid and you know it. Terrorists should have no rights and be locked up for a long time. Suspected terrorists, or anyone suspected of any crime should be treated farily under the law and be given all opportunity to disprove the allegations against them.
New Suffolk/7news poll for Massachusetts :
McCain 30% .. Obama 53%
http://www.suffolk.edu/files/SUPRC/WEB_MA_STATEWIDE_MARGINALS_JUNE_10_2008.pdf
74: ‘It shows just how many people the government bought off. What were their prices, I wonder?’
Just wait for week after week of this Labour MP got this for his vote, and this one that stories in the media. And the the Labour lords go and vote it out.
68 Cameron & Davis did take a brave decision to oppose 42 days. The Sun (in fact Rupert Murdoch) has been a consistent supporter of the War on Terror and the Blair/Brown approach to security. While all Conservative MPs but Widdy voted against it needs to be recognised there is a strong and committed group of Tory support who see the Islamist threat as near apocalypsal in much same terms as the Climate Change fundamentalists (generally no cross over between these groups - perhaps people can only support one threat to civilisation at once).
A win is a win and Gordon Brown showed yesterday that he is still a redoubtable tactical fighter and the next election isn’t in the bag. While a pleasing number of Tory activists posting on CHome thread on 42 days were defenders of liberty I doubt the manner of the win will damage Brown in the mass of the electorate and would expect that we will see a narrowing of Tory leads and recovery of Labour polling over the summer.
GOP Congressional block refuse to endorse McCain :
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/new-gang-of-14-wont-back-mccain-2008-06-11.html
4. Mobile text poll on TV3 AM gives NO votes 85% and YES votes 9%, just before news cut-off under election rules. Was it a hoax to scare YES supporters into turning out, or genuine? See report
HERE
82 — That’s good news ! — for the prospecti of democracy and my own betting position on the No!
Thanks a lot. And keep on the good work
72 - I watched all the speeches on the 42 day debate yesterday (sad bastard that I am) and, I agree, Diane Abbott’s speech was excellent. One of the most passionate and scathing critiques of 42 days I saw.
Terrorists are criminals. I know that for a fact because it’s only NeoConservatives who insist otherwise.
84, read both here and on Boulton’s blog of her giving an, ahem, robust assessment of Vaz’s views in the chamber.
Brown’s now going to be scrutinised for months to see what happens with the DUP and any number of backbenchers. The question is whether they’ll get the 30 pieces of silver, and where the money’s coming from (more borrowing?)
Yesterday’s so-called victory is already coming back to bite Brown on the bum. His sleazy politicking, bribery, and chicanery is going down badly in most of the press.
Today’s Guardian headline: “Desperate Brown scrapes through”, with this scathing piece by Simon Hoggart also on the front page:
“A pyrrhic victory doomed to pitiful defeat”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jun/11/terrorism.uksecurity2
Douglas Adams famously asked “What is the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything, to which the answer is 42?”
Well according to The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, it is: “How long does it take to crack the computer codes of a terrorist?”
Amazing! And there was I thinking that Brown had no qualifications in Computer Science or Cryptography!
88 - and in any event the decryption argument was bogus anyway because, as we all know, the police can still charge the alleged terrorist with failing to divulge the passphrase to encrypted material.
31: hello seanT - found a new obsession? I didn’t coordinate the pressure on compensation with Mohammed Sarwar - we evidently came to the same view independently. The exact amount wasn’t discussed but £3000 a day seems pretty fair to me.
An uneasy morning for David Davis - supposedly he talked round a reluctant Cameron on the issue with the prediction that he could defeat the Government on the issue. Presumably that’s why he’s had to hedge on reversing the change.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/threelinewhip/june2008/daviddavies.htm
86 - yes, she gave Keith Vaz a good kicking. She was sitting behind him and heckled almost constantly about how much in kickbacks the good people of Leicester were likely to get for Vaz’s support.
72 Thank you for the link.
Powerful and moving.
Couldn’t help thinking of a the young son of a family friend of Pakistani Muslim origin who was the subject of an unprovoked attack recently coming home from school.
I wanted to curl up with shame.
New Uni Wisconsin/WisPolitics.com poll for Wisconsin :
McCain 37% .. Obama 50%
http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=128513
90 He didnt hedge - he said he would support 42 days if there was ANY EVIDENCE to suggest it. What he said about repealing it is that he will do it asap unless the EVIDENCE has changed.
but of course evidence has nothing to do with your decision, merely partisan party politics.
90: I bet Davis slept a lot easier last night than Gordon did…
42, Roger.
The distinction between accused (Picked up as a possible suspect but not charged) and guilty is rather a fundamental one and, indeed, the crux of the point.
Unless there is a total correlation between “arrested under Terrorism legislation and not yet charged” and “guilty Islamic terrorist”, your point is, at best, facetious.
Was Walter Wolfgang an “Islamic Terrorist”?
How about the two people held without charge for 27 days and released? Should they have been held for another two weeks, despite being innocent?
How about you? Or me? Or anyone in this country?
The entire point of due process of law is that it seperates “accused but innocent” from “guilty” and must be given the chance to do so. Holding people without charge should be done reluctantly and with knowledge that it is profoundly undesirable but unfortunately occasionally necessary. Minimising time in that unfortunate state of affairs must be paramount. Invoking a short deadline to emphasise that the powers of the State to override our rights are strictly limited is essential, and the arguments on extending that short deadline were presented yesterday. They were insufficient and highly unconvincing.
90 “An uneasy morning for David Davis….”
Pull the other one, Nick. It’s got bells on. This is going down very badly for Brown and you know it……and it’s still got much longer to run.
90 - Nick, I don’t like to take you up too often on matters of policy [to some extent, that misses the point of the site] but how do you answer the Times’s charge?
Hitherto, depriving crime suspects of their liberty for strictly limited periods, whether or not charges are eventually brought, has been accepted as a regrettable but unavoidable part of the price of justice. The Government has now endorsed the fundamentally flawed notion that pre-charge detention is legitimate only when it leads to a prosecution.
And why no compensation for the first 28 days?
Trawling through the blogs today this brought a smile to my face.
From: ‘I pissed on the pillar of a speed camera on my way home tonight…
could not think of a less intellectual, or, more appropriate way to express my feeling of the Labour party.
speak to you in 43 days time’
85 — That’s great.
“Argument A is wrong because only devil worshippers advocate it.”
Now we know where you stand.
On the side of the Authorians who want to modify the criminal law for cheap political gains.
80
I agree with your assessment that 42 days does not resonate with the electorate.
What does resonate is the economy. News continues to deteriorate…and it’s like falling off a cliff. At first you fall slowly , then you accelerate cos you get feedback: each job lost adds to Government spending, reduces the income of shops businesses and the Government.
I do expect some bounce but it’s likely to be very weak and short lived.
After all the housing market looks like it’s going to make records.. and I suspect many major builders will go bust. The spin offs on employment and politics are going to be horrendous.
If the underwriters lose money on HBOS rights issue, then I suspect that may close the door on more banks rights issues and a flood of mergers and job shedding will follow in the next 3 years.
Talking of unease, Mr Palmer, how does it feel to be supported by the pernicious likes of Gabble? (Not to mention Murdoch and Widdecombe.)
Shame on the lot of you.
“Argument A is wrong because only devil worshippers advocate it.”
I see no problem with drawing such an inference.
I see that opponents of PR are this morning out crowing that this proves PR and coalition/minority government is flawed because it would always be like this. Even Mike indulges them.
However, this reasoning is itself flawed. The point about PR is that it will change the behaviour of parties for better, and in particular it will change the behaviour of governments to be more consensual.
It is correct to say that if no one changed their behaviour, then every time a hugely contentious bit of legislation came up that the government was determined to ram through against the better judgement of most parties and against the clearly winning argument, then it would be like this.
But the point of coalition or minority government and PR is that that wouldn’t happen because such behaviour would quickly lead to motions of no confidence or the government being replaced. Minority governments cannot behave like Gordon Brown did yesterday and survive. So they wont behave like that, because they will want to survive.
Note for example that the SNP have not attempted to ram through idiotic pieces of legislation like this, because they know it would cripple them. It’s that simple.
PR wouldn’t lead to this kind of nonsense - PR would prevent this kind of nonsense!
Where does the housing market leave Brown’s plan to build 3,000,000 houses during the next 20 years. Would have been difficult enough even in yesterday’s market but with potential supply difficulties with builders under pressure and collapsing sales then his grand plan does not get off to a propitious start.
90: Nice try Nick, but no one is buying that rubbish. If you think Cameron is unhappy after yesterday’s debacle you really must be deluded in the Labour bunker…
104 What do you mean Minority Governments can’t behave like that. What wheeling and dealing do you think goes on in Italy, Israel or for that matter Ireland and Spain. The difference being it won’t be just on hugely contentious legislation as here but on everything. PR just creates lots of little Hans Dietrich Genschers who will stay in office for decades regardless of who ‘wins.’ FPTP’s brutal simple appeal remains when the time comes the bums can be kicked out if the public so desires.
51. “If Roger in post 42 really works for this Government or the Labour Party then he is amply demonstrating just how addled the thinking now is…..”
I thought they were strapped for cash? I think I’m too high maintenance!
(The addled thinking is mine alone. Ask Ted at 54!)
42. One of the most idiotic posts ever on this site
90. Surely the most desperately unconvincing piece of spin ever on this site.
Is Doctor Palmer suggesting that, without the generous compensation package on offer, he would have voted AGAINST 42-day detention?
63. I guess a £40,000 bet at those odds would help clear the Labour Party’s debts…
103 — Nothing wrong? Think again.
First, it is never ever true.
In the case we are discussing it is indeed very false.
For even the ICRV — hardly a Neo-Con think thanl inspired by John Yoo! — agree that the fundamental distiction between criminals and terrorists is of great importance:
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/terrorism-ihl-210705
112 — Typo alert: not ICRV but International Committe for the Red Cross (ICRC).
77. Chris A I agree. But having lived through the Thatcher tyranny is irritates the Hell out of me to get these kind of lectures from Tories!
105 Its not 3 million homes in 20 years but 3 million additional homes by 2020 - so starting this year about 250,000 a year. Its not going to be met just as the other long term targets aren’t going to be met. Harold Macmillan did manage those sort of figures but that was through a huge council house programme, Brown has no intention of doing that he just hoped that if he changed the planning regulations as an enabler that builders would rush in to build.
so, how long before the Con headbangers are allowed to go back to quietly supporting longer detention and harsher penalties for terrorists?
106: Mr Palmer isn’t deluded. He’s eating his feet (see Simon Carr in today’s Indy). He’ll get a gold star from the Whips for his blogging here.
90: Nick, you’re a Labour MP, you, and your party, shouldn’t be trying to look more authoritarian than the Tories.
You’ve kept Brown in office much to the pleasure of all Tory supporters.
I think the West Lothian question is now wrapped up with the Shankill road question. This has been driven through by Scottish and NI votes. If Cameron slips back in the polls over the next 2 years, we’ll see a lot more of it in the next Parliament.
IRISH REFERENDUM ON THE LISBON TREATY
“the most significant referendum since Ireland joined the European Economic Community back in 1972”
From the Irish Independant:
http://www.independent.ie/business/media/what-price-your-vote-1406214.html
“In recent weeks, the nation’s streets have been besieged by 100,000 posters swamping unsuspecting lampposts.
——-
I’d like to know the positions of various punters on the Referendum.
Did you bet on the NO or on the YES?
If so, more money or less money than on Boris Johson?
I for one bet about the same on the NO.
This will have a short term benefit in the polls.
However, my guess is that the quarter of the electorate who are against it are likely to be principled and angry and voters. With this they will have moved even more into the red [and some might be former ‘reds’ he was relying on.]
The damage will come from:
1. attacks from Blairites. Gordon can try to look tough against them but it will show a divided party.
2. The press who are increasingly cynical about him. Across all political spectrums, you can say he is a fighter, an operator, but you would be mocked if you said he was principled or moral. He is increasingly being seen as a one dimensional ‘politican’, the shabby workings of which could be seen by a child.
3. The drip drip of stories about what has been spent to buy them off.
Ultimately the price of food petrol and the mortgage will resonate for longer.
Unless there is an attack. And sorry to be depressing, but that is what Robinson was referring to when he said the ‘context’ might change.
Is that Labour’s ’something will turn up’ election strategy? My guess is that it would have to involve someone who was released at 28 days and even then people would ask why they didn’t use the Civil Continguencies Act or emergency legislation.
A point to consider: What does it mean, if after pushing this through, against some odds … taking his big populist stance and winning, with Dave seen to be on the ‘wrong’ side of a huge issue and facing endless allegations of sleaze, they don’t actually pick up at all?
I think they will.
[I thought they would in the last round of polls.]
117 — how much will he be able to get on eBay for that star of sycophancy, once he’s lost his seat?
118. “90: Nick, you’re a Labour MP, you, and your party, shouldn’t be trying to look more authoritarian than the Tories”
Your’re on the money Ralph. It’s not ‘a Lebanon’ but these things are building up.
Nick, you still haven’t answered my question. Why do you think £3000 a day for detention-without-trial is “fair”?
Would £2000 also be fair? Why not £1000 a day? Why so much? Why not £500? or £50?
Or, why so little? This is someone’s liberty. Why not give them £30,000 a day? or £3million
Why is £3000 “fair” and not some other sum? And why does it only kick in after 28 days? why not before? Why not after seventeen and a half days? Why not for the final hour?
The fact you have not answered is, I suspect, becuase the question is unanswerable. And this reveals the poverty of your position.
My guess is that deep down inside, you think this detention without trial is basically wrong, but you are too scared, too careerist, and too much of a lickspittle to vote against it; so you got some stupid figleaf of a compromise to cover your tiny conscience - i.e. the absurd idea that a nice new car makes up for the suspension of habeus corpus. And thus you were able to abandon the very last of your principles, in the service of your wretched government.
I’m sorry to be so harsh. I was enjoying our rapprochement. But your actions and your comments these last 24 hours are beyond tolerance. Go read the thread again, or indeed the papers. You’ll see it’s not just the usual suspects dumping on you and your stupid leader.
For shame, for shame, for shame. I hope one day you will look back on all this and feel very queasy.
Chris D Re Alex Carlile - he’s always been on that wing of the Lib Dems. To be quite honest, since he took his present “advisory” post to Govt, I have expected his ultimate resignation from the Party.
Adam Doster on the importance of voter registration and turnout to Obama’s cause :
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3741/expand_the_vote/
According to the Guardian one promise for the DUP “A commitment that liberal abortion laws in Great Britain, which do not apply in Northern Ireland, would not be extended to the province.”
This means that Harriet Harperson’s Govt has deprived the women of Northern Ireland of liberal abortion laws in return for 42 days.
Where are her principles? Er lost?
120 - I bet a small amount on ‘no’ when it was 5/1 with Paddy Power (I did tip it here then as I’ve mentioned, oh, umpteen times since). Closed out when the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ prices converged after one of the polls showing a ‘no’ lead.
I tend to agree with the Irish Independent (that doesnt happen often) that this is the most significant European referendum in Ireland since ‘72. Not because Lisbon itself is significant but because unlike most of the referendums since then there is a chance of a ‘no’ result and unlike Nice there doesnt seem to be an obvious solution if the result is ‘no’.
Brown about to do a press conference. its on radio 5 live in a few minutes
“Do you want to be blown up?”
No, but there seems an increasing chance of it.
While the government spends enormous amounts of influence, determination and treasure trying to pass the 42 day proposal it seems to be losing its grip on managing the intelligence systems which are the real defence against terrorist.
This time it is not tens of millions of people’s personal data but a very, very sensitive assessment of the main enemy Al Qeda.
Good management is as important in intelligence gathering as in the NHS or Customs service. And this government does not seem to do the day to day, hour by hour hard graft that good management requires.
They seem instead to believe in the magic of new laws, that once passed solve the problem.
In fact poorly drafted laws like this one have caused them more problems than they have solved. The HRA is an excellent case to study: rushed into law without any sensible assessment of the consequences leaves the government unable to detain or even deport those supporting terrorists.
Incompetence simply increases the risk. And we have seen plenty of that: data loss, illegal immigrants guarding terrorist targets, paralysis in indicting terrorist supporters, inability to control those coming into the country, poor support for troops on the front line who are our first defence. The list goes on and on.
We can never be risk free, but why make it worse with the sort of time wasting we have seen over the last year. Every time there is a problem the government solution is to use spin to limit the damage. What have they done to put the problem right?
The vote on 42 days shows that the Conservatives have finally learned - after 11 years - about the role of the Opposition is to oppose.In government, you can be sure they would have done exactly the same as Gordon.
126 Jack W what has AA turnout traditionally been versus what you think Obama can get. And can we bet on it.
What would the Home Office be saying right now had Robert Mugabe done
what Gordon did last night?
128. But the EU is already planning a second referendum if Ireland votes ‘no’, as the French press have revealed. Countries aren’t allowed to vote ‘no’, especially small and insignificant ones.
132
Cf. Q&A on Minority Turnout Model, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/quick-q-on-minority-turnout-model.html
BTW, you should bookmark this website:
132
and this, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/black-youth-and-latino-turnout-and.html
re 124 and Nick if any of your constituents come to you wanting help with their son who’s been detained for weeks with no news are you going you tell them to go away and be grateful for their compensation. it was nauseatingly shameful last night, and it remains so this morning.
134 - The point being there’s nothing obvious to change about Lisbon that would produce a different result. Most people could tell that neturality was a key isue with Nice (whether justified or not). There’s no single issue that defines opposition to Lisbon. What can they do to produce a different result in a rerun? The Irish government could always ratify it through Parliament but I doubt Fianna Fáil would want to take the devastating electoral consequences that would involve.
131 No they wouldn’t.
If they had wanted to extend the limit they would have decided it on the evidence and then make the case.
The legislation would then have been properly considered to ensure it was workable and addressed the real difficulties. Cobbled together and muddled legislation will not help us in a time of need.
This involves the maximum amount of benefit for the least amount of damage both to our rights and freedoms and in terms of handing the agenda to the terrorists.
The more consensus the better.
This was a sham. A empty stance.
A Government in the politics of opposition.
An Opposition in the business of Government.
131 you can only post that John because you fail to understand the Conservative Party.
While Roger was surviving under the Thatcher Tyranny I was thankful that she stood up to the authoritarian mindset from South America to Eastern Europe. This fantasy that Conservative supporters are are all secret nazis exists only in the minds of the morally narcissistic.
I even feel a bit sorry for the likes of Melvyn Bragg - and even Billy Bragg; how excruciatingly embarrassing it must be to see their party taken over by an inerloping clique of crazed bullies like McNumpty.
Brown “there ware no deals over 42 days” does this bloke not realise that we can all recognise a liar when we hear one? It is his lies that will do for him.
134/128
It is significant also ’cause the Irish people are the only people who has the chance to reject the Treaty.
Because of this guy: http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/IrishNews&CISOPTR=161&REC=2
Read: “The State is the enemy of our nation” — Crotty