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Why Labour has chosen the right Miliband

Thursday, September 30, 2010
No Labour party leader with an unabbreviated first name has won a general election since 1974 - Harold Wilson.  Since then, Mr Tony succeeded in '97, 2001 and 2005 while Michael, Neil, John and Gordon have all failed.  Jim presents a bit of a problem, but I'm sidestepping that.

I suppose that Balls or Burnham would have been in with a shout come 2015 too, while Ms Abbott would have joined the long list of losers too.

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posted by Croydonian

Your handy guide to the popularity of the Labour leadership contenders

Monday, May 31, 2010
Data taken from here.

So that's 102 MPs playing hard to get, including Harman, Straw, Darling and the ex PM, Mr 'Albatross Around The Neck' Brown.  Miliband still hasn't nominated himself, by the way.

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posted by Croydonian

Brown loses the puppet vote

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
And here's the evidence:











Pretty conclusive, eh?

Slightly more focusedly relevant vox pops available here.

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posted by Croydonian

Has the Speaker had plastic surgery on expenses?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Judging from how Les Echos is reporting the fall of Michael Martin, he has:



Not sure who the chap pictured is, but he does not look the re-incarnation of Sir John Trevor, does he? Whoever he is, it might be actionable.

One might note the coincidences connecting Martin with the disgraced Trevor - both have forenames as surnames, both hail from the Celtic fringe, and while Trevor was cross-eyed, one might argue that Martin is either one-eyed or no-eyed. Commenter John has been kind enough to point out that the chap photographed is the Republic of Ireland's Foreign Affairs chap Micheál Martin. Doubtless whoever is in charge of photographs at Les Echos had fat fingers when searching the photo library.

Anyway, as a fine woman once put it, 'Rejoice! Rejoice!'.

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posted by Croydonian

Fancy Elliot Morley running out of things to tweet...

Thursday, May 14, 2009
Like so:
(snigger)

His bio line is 'Proud to be Scunthorpe's Labour MP'. Is he now violating electoral law, I wonder?

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posted by Croydonian

So much for Harman's denials

Monday, May 04, 2009
Betting markets are quite good at cutting through the, ahem, smelly stuff, and here's what they reckon at PaddyPower.com:


Odds unchanged from a few days ago, if memory serves, and HH still has the shortest odds. Far be it for me to interfere with the People's Party's death wish, but if they have any sense Brown will 'develop' some illness or other and Johnson will take the reins.

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posted by Croydonian

An idea of promise

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
This, from the petitions site:

"the concept is simple if the turn out is lower than 50% in any constituancy (sic) then no one is returned and the seat in the commons remains empty. We the people will then have an ongoing measure of how representative the house of commons really is and "none of the above" will be accurately represented".

Can't say I thought it was a great idea until a cursory look at turnout figures in 2005 suggest that Labour would lose at least 24 seats (including the Speaker). Shame about Frank Field, but we would be shot of Blears and Lammy, inter alia.

If anyone can lay hands on a list of seats by turnout from 2005 and pass them onto me, they would win my undying gratitude.

Update - Courtesy of helpful reader Formertory, I now have an updated figure of 37 MPs who all gained election on less than a 50% turnout. All bar Staffordshire South (qv) are Labour MPs. Forgetting about subsequent by-elections and the like, the 2005 election would have produced a House like so:

Labour - 320
Conservative - 197
LD - 62
The rest - 30

So, with a 609 seat House, Labour would have a majority of 15. I think that there would have been a number of successful rebellions...

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posted by Croydonian

How the Bank of Scotland is getting back on track. Readers *will* approve

Monday, January 26, 2009
Dizzy having sent me a link to the electoral register's Labour Party loans and donations page, I spotted this little gem:

Bank of Scotland

Amount - £2,500
Date entered into - 01/10/2007
Interest rate - 13.9%
Repayment made - 01/08/2008

Other banks etc have lent at rates of around 6-7%, so I am delighted by the activities of those fine Caledonian bankers. I hope they will lend more to Labour at similar, or better still, far higher rates. Hey, it's for the good of the country too....

Meanwhile, I am glad that I do not have to be conflicted over Taggart's Alec Ferguson's donations to the Beast of Victoria Street.

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posted by Croydonian

Where your money goes - British division

Wednesday, January 07, 2009
From e-politix:

"The decision to hold cabinet meetings outside of London cost the taxpayer an estimated £200,000 per session.

Meetings in Birmingham and Leeds last year, and one in Liverpool on Thursday, could cost up to £600,000 in total, according to new figures".

Rosie 'friend of John Prescott' Winterton justifies it in entirely party political terms:

"Hosting this event gave us the opportunity of getting the prime minister to Halifax and the chancellor to Bradford & Bingley to allow them to put forward the case for saving thousands of jobs in the region".

Couldn't the bankers just have got a train to London, at a cost of maybe a few hundred quid even if they went first class and paid on the day? Or maybe called Brown at the cost of a few pence?

The indefatigable and all round top chap that is Mark Wallace of the TPA had this to say:

"This bill is unfair to put on local taxpayers, particularly when these meetings were just PR exercises to promote the government, rather than give local people real power."

I make you right there Mark.

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posted by Croydonian

A thousand years ago...Pt 1

Friday, October 03, 2008
From a post in January 2007:

"....one might note that Ofsted's last report on Bolton judged its special needs provision 'good' or 'highly satisfactory' (page 29) on all measures.

We can all be absolutely certain she will staying in Bolton if she loses her marginal seat (maj. 2,064) at the next election, so she won't have to put her child ahead of her politics for very long, will she?".

And from the BBC today:

"I've taken the area to my heart and will leave with a touch of sadness and fond memories, although I'm sure the decision I have taken is right for myself and my family."

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posted by Croydonian

The 70s revival starts here

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
No, not platform boots, interminable drum solos and Roger Dean artwork, but this:

"Ahead of Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party Conference, Derek Simpson the joint leader of Unite, is calling on the Prime Minister to throw off the shackles of new Labour and reveal the real Labour".

The economy in a mess? Check
Rampant inflation? Check
A PM who does not know his humerus from his coccyx? Check
Rising unemployment? Check
Trade unionists attempting a shake down? Check
Baling out failed companies with our money? Check


Power cuts and the three day week - not quite yet.

Labour is quite real enough already, thank you.

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posted by Croydonian

If Brown loses Glasgow East....

Monday, July 07, 2008
For the sheer joy of psephology, I have been rooting around in the electoral stats at Richard Kimber's PolSci resources page at Keele University, and have come up with a list of the pigs with red rosettes that would be left if Labour were to lose Glasgow East by one vote.

By my reckoning, there would be some 40 Labour MPs left, all having majorities of 13,600 or more. However, it is not a list awash with household names, those that would definitely (?) register with the man in the street being Skinner, D, Brown, G, Blunkett, D, Reid, J, Byers, S, Vaz, K and Cooper, Y.

Wonks and other obsessives will know of Chris Bryant - no sniggering at the back -, Eric Joyce, Ian McCartney (short trollish character, yes?), Fraser 'the undertaker' Kemp, Andy 'how much mascara are you sporting?' Burnham and Peter Kilfoyle. I suspect that John Cummings of Easington, Joe Benton of Bootle and Francis Hywel of Aberavon can use public transport without being harassed by voters from outside their constituencies.

I'd like to see the Dour One knock up a shadow cabinet from that rather unpromising timber.

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posted by Croydonian

Londongrad and Helengrad

Tuesday, June 03, 2008
News from the Antipodes:

"Helen Clark today turned her fire on National's refusal to reveal its major policies after the three latest polls showed Labour trailing badly.

The Prime Minister claimed the polls would not show the true level of Government support until the National Party had revealed its policies and said how it would pay for them." Source.

At the risk of being thought a cynic, doesn't that particular play smack of how our own dear Labour party responds to opinion poll slippage. Might the Dour One or one of his homunculi be counselling the besieged Socialist Tsarina of New Zealand?

Mind you, they would break out the fair trade champagne at Victoria Street if they were registering 36% in the polls.



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posted by Croydonian

Making the same anouncement twice

Friday, May 30, 2008
As is well known, ministers in this government would make drums out of the skins of their own mothers the louder to sing their own praises, and announce the same 'announcement' every six months in the hope that the gullible and the complicit will report it as new money.

So much for the history lesson. Now the same press release is attributed to two different departments on the same day:

So DEFRA has this to say - "A raft of new Government measures to help vulnerable consumers and especially the elderly make their homes warmer and more energy efficient are announced today". It goes on to quote the Wickser, Woolas and O'Brien.

And the DTI BERR has this to say: "A raft of new Government measures to help vulnerable consumers and especially the elderly make their homes warmer and more energy efficient are announced today". Guess who it quotes.....

Both were released into the wild at one past midnight according to the DEFRA and BERR websites. However, the ever useful thegovernmentsays.com tells a somewhat different story, detecting BERR's release at 3.12 and Defra's at 4.44.

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posted by Croydonian

Loose lips sink ships

Friday, May 16, 2008
I am much obliged to A, the internet, B, News Group and C, big-mouthed Tamsin Kneafsey-Dunwoody for this interview:

TKD: "She's an old-style campaigner, whereas I've learnt newer techniques in terms of targeting key voters and working out what the result is going to be....The thing she's drilled into me is the importance of the constituency. Both of us see that it's important to have a relationship with the electorate that is based on the person as much as the party. Watching the way she did it has helped me to realise the importance of building up your base". (She has no connection to the place and was parachuted in)

GD: "I do wish that Tamsin had come to Westminster rather than the Welsh Assembly. I'm not supposed to say that - it's the one thing we really disagree on. This is the power base where she could have made a contribution. She will contribute very well down there, but it is a smaller arena. So I don't like her decision on that - but I do understand it".

One might note that Dunwoody fille was not always so ashamed of her husband's name, and googling Tamsin Kneafsey or Tamsin Kneafsey Dunwoody lands right on the money.

So, more findings:

"Asked for her aspirations for the assembly she wants to continue to improve the economy and raise the profile of the assembly in Wales". Source. This was when she lived in a part of Crewe called Haverfordwest

Apparently she is in Burke's, although I only have that on hearsay.

Meanwhile, on Betfair the Tories are at 1.2 to win the by-election and TKD is at 5.6.

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posted by Croydonian

And if Brown resigns for 'health reasons'?

Monday, May 12, 2008
I cannot see Brown willingly letting go of the brass ring, having finally got his greasy mitts on it, but should Straw and the other eminences grise of the party persuade him to do so, there is the potential for a fearfully long interregnum while the People's Party grinds into action. It does beg the question as to who would be running the show while Brown is locked away in a sanatorium?

Unlike Blair, Brown has foregone making the deputy leader of the Labour Party the deputy PM, although I imagine that Harman would be most keen to insist that she should become the PM pending a leadership election should Brown be pushed. Straw would probably present himself as a safe pair of hands, and if truth be told, he would be the sensible choice for that caretaker role. As with Beckett in '94 or whenever it was, both Straw and Harman would regard the stopgap role as a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

As has been noted elsewhere, the Tories do regicide rather better than Labour, but the Hague leadership rules would make the process of replacing a sitting Tory PM messy and drawn out too. While Brown could name a deputy PM - and there should be as clear cut a line of succession as there is in the US - I do not imagine that he will, as that would be an admission that he is indeed mortal.

So, perhaps I should be careful what I wish for, although if Straw were in charge one might at least expect a degree of competence.

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posted by Croydonian

Economic acts between consenting adults

Monday, April 21, 2008
I'm all in favour of them, frankly but this government is not:

"The Government is now looking to event organisers, promoters and their ticket agents to work together to find new ways of making sure that tickets are properly distributed without fans routinely paying over-the-odds. These improvements can happen without the burden of new regulation, by criminalising fans who want to buy tickets for sold-out events or sell tickets that they cannot use".

Conceivably the people at Pravda Central, or Andy 'just how much eyeliner are you wearing?' Burnham in whose name this went out got their words a bit derrière about visage and missed out an 'or' but why should they be given the benefit of the doubt when the rest of the content is almost as dispiritingly illiberal, ill-thought out and generally ghastly.

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posted by Croydonian

Good news, everybody - the death of socialism

Thursday, April 03, 2008
Swedish Social Democratic Party Leader Mona Sahlin: '"If developments continue, this party won’t exist in 10 to 15 years"... The Social Democrats lost 19,000 members last year. The 16 percent drop is the largest in more than 10 years...Membership has been cut in half since the 1990s'. Source.

A Swedish model I would counsel our own dear Labour Party to copy closely.

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posted by Croydonian

The trouble with point scoring

Monday, March 10, 2008
Wading through an extraordinarily predictable debate on women in Parliament, I came across this:

"Lynda Waltho (Stourbridge) (Lab): I am impressed with the right hon. Lady’s words, but will she expand on the figures? How many of those selected women will be candidates in winnable Tory seats? How many of them will be normal working-class women who do not have Ashcroft money or are millionaires in their own right?".

And what is there to be said of the extraordinarily undistinguished MP for Stourbridge, and almost certain one term MP (majority of 407.) before obscurity proffers a hand? Interesting too that she seems to think society divides women into horny-handed daughters of toil and self made millionaires.

Anyway, doubtless numerous teachers and wonks will be pleased / miffed that she considers such lines of work to be authentically proletarian, those having been her previous lines of work. And what does the UK Polling Report have to say about Stourbridge:

"Stourbridge is a suburban dormitory area on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation - while the seat is mainly urban, it borders onto open countryside just over the border in South Staffordshire. Largely white, lower middle-class, owner-occupied former council houses and large scale new-build private estates, especially in Amblecote".

So I can only presume that Waltho will bigging up her prole 'credentials' when touring the large scale new-build private estates etc and stirring up class war at every available opportunity.

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posted by Croydonian

The least surprising event of the year

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Less so than the religious affiliation of Benedict XVI, the personal hygiene choices of Ursus arctos horribilis and wrestling being fixed.

Don't believe me?

Here goes:

Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government: What sums have been paid in social benefits in respect of second or subsequent concurrent wives or of their children since 1997?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): The information is not recorded centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

How very, very convenient.

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posted by Croydonian