I have been campaigning like crazy for the Lib Dems in Ealing and Central Acton. It is fun, for the first time in my life, to live in a marginal constituency. I am pretty confident this will be a Lib Dem gain. The local candidate, Jon Ball, is a good man, not least because he quite voluntarily, and before I moved into his constituency, came to one of my lectures!
The Tory candidate, Angie Bray, is a PR professional from Cameron’s “A-list.” Thanks to George for digging up this puff piece about her from the Financial Times, which cheerily informs us:
Angie Bray in Ealing Central and Acton was unabashed about using political links formed while working for the Tory communications machine to help her private PR clients
So much for Cameron’s claims that the Tories represent a cleaner politics…
It woz we wot hung em.
Well done voters of Britain.
Now we might get proper electoral reform and a degree of humanity in the coming public sector cuts.
Much as I detest its inner cadre, is there any chance that we could see a coalition with Labour, with the proviso that Labour must choose a new PM to replace Brown? I fear Clegg made a major mistake in promising to do a deal with the winner – horsetrading with the Tories will dissolve anything progressive in the LD manifesto.
Debacle!
Too many Tories.
Straw re-elected (how?)
Fall in Lib Dem seats (how?)
Looks like a lot of cheating to me. Oh well, at least it’s hung. Now the real work starts…
There’s a People’s Parliament in Parliament Square – been there since Saturday 1st.
There’s a Fair Voting demo in Trafalgar Square 2:00 PM Saturday 8th.
38 Degrees have a “What’s Next” page:
http://labs.38degrees.org.uk/content/election-what-next
Someone encourage me; this is NOT my idea of fun, but I feel that it has to be done.
The upper reaches of the Lib Dems have been infiltrated by the Right in almost exactly the same way as Old Labour was with Blair and his mob.
Its about time activists of what was the Left, had a shave, cut their hair, bought a suit, went on a course of elocution lessons and did a bit of infiltration of their own.
Most Old Labour and even current Grass Roots Lib Dems would be absolutely horrified about them doing a deal with the Tories.
Of course it is all still highly tribal.
Tony
i/c of the horsetrading.
A good establishment type –
http://www.royal.gov.uk/LatestNewsandDiary/Pressreleases/2006/AnnouncementoftheretirementofSirRobinJanvrinTheQue.aspx
plus Sir Gus O’Donnell and two other civil servants.
Like some sort of board game?
You can’t blame the tories for looking at the lib dems as very junior partners in their upcoming electoral stitch up. After all the lib dems’ leader went to a slighlty inferior elitist boarding school than the tories’ leader.
@ Brian
+ 17 others, if Mr. Criddle was correct here, though probably not all ex-members of the Bullingdon Club.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/11/commons-private-education-old-etonians
So, what do we have?
A huge protest vote against NuLab, almost all going to the Tories.
A huge fear vote against Cameron, almost all going to NuLab.
The LibDems must finally be finished as a political force. If they cannot capitalise in these circumstances they never will.
If they are not dead now, they will be after they join Cameron in a coalition (Vince Cable for a junior Treasury post where he can be blamed for the carnage to come?)
The LibDems are damned now whatever they do. If they join a Cameron coalition with their collapsed vote they will have no bargaining power to demand PR. If they refuse to join without such an assurance they will be condemned for holding the country to ransom.
It is Nick Clegg’s fault! Get rid of him now.
The outcome potentially gives individual MP’s enormously increased power and influence, if they have the courage to use it.
The party whip system is one of the most undemocratic things in politics, effectively forcing MP’s to vote sometimes for measures that they are fundamentally opposed to -“OR ELSE”.
An individual MP in this situation can turn around to their WHIP when threatened and say
AND????
But are there that many left who actually have any Integrity or Conscience? I assume all the new recruits will be well trained party clones and do exactly as they are told.
Tony
tony_opmoc at May 7, 2010 12:51 PM
However, LibDems could not possibly work with NuLab given their consistent opposition stance re. Iraq.
Cameron is currently stating his intention to form partnership with LibDem.
The horse trading is underway….
Towel-whipping and high-fiving between AngryLarry aside, isn’t anyone else seriously concerned about this unfolding environmental catastrophe, possibly the worst ever:
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/deepwater_horizon_secret_memo.html
And maybe this is some whacked out “loon” conspiracy theory:
http://pesn.com/2010/05/02/9501643_Mother_of_all_gushers_could_kill_Earths_oceans/
These are worst-case scenarios. The best case scenario? “We’ve got to get that capped.”
Glenn, I honestly don’t know what to say. The guy who wrote the email seems to suggest there is nothing that can be done and that we’re all doomed!
“We’re humped. Unless God steps in and fixes this. No human can. You can be sure of that.”
He gives one piece of advice:
“The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I’m not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work.”
But that sounds counter-intuitive to me.
There is something I do agree with here, though:
“We’re so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren’t recognizing that we’re staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see.”
Yes, our politicians do create false panics about this, that and the other but they’re not the only ones.
At the bottom of your first link is a response from those who produced the memo that states a worst-case scenario:
“Smullen described the NOAA document as a regular daily briefing. “Your report makes it sound pretty dire. It’s a scenario,” he said, “It’s a regular daily briefing sheet that considered different scenarios much like any first responder would.””
Anyway, Glenn. I’ve written a post for you.
If anyone wants to add comments then pleeeeeeeeeeease do. Please!
http://angrysoba.blogspot.com/2010/05/oil.html
Re: Mexican Gulf oil spill
They’ve got a funnel positioned over the main Deep Horizon leak, with a good chance of capturing most of the oil within a few days:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100507/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
Talking of a nuclear remedy seems premature.
Alfred: Saw that yesterday… it would be very good news, but it will only capture (according to BP) about 85% of the leak. If – as predicted – the rupture becomes worse, as the kinked pipe allows full throughput, we would see an order of magnitude increase. That will put us (even with the box) at 150% of the current leak.
I most certainly hope these disaster scenarios are overblown – what’s happened already is more than bad enough, even if it were completely stopped right now.
What does seem clear, is that these leaks (on a much smaller scale) are totally commonplace, and are simply accepted as standard working practice. Acoustic valves (or percussion valves) have to be in place when deep sea drilling in European seas, by regulation. Dubbya basically got his oil-industry buddies to re-write the legislation for the US, and a $500,000 piece of safety equipment was considered prohibitively expensive.
AngrySoba: Thanks for writing that blog entry, it’s very good.
What are the chances that blowing a ‘nuclear bomb’ size hole in the seabed would stop oil coming out of the existing hole ?
Richard: The link below suggests this is what the Russians did in a somewhat similar situation:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Should-we-drop-a-nuclear-bomb-on-the-leaky-oil-well–92789044.html
Thanks, glenn.
It all looks a bit “What could go wro … oops” (geology, fallout, etc), but I don’t know enough for an opinion worth having.