My general advice for English voters has been to vote for the candidate most likely to beat the Tory. In Birmingham Yardley it is not easy to be certain whether that is the Labour or Lib Dem, but there are a raft of other reasons to vote for John Hemming over Jess Phillips.
Firstly, in an extremely strong field, Jess Phillips has struck me as perhaps the most objectionable person in parliament. She has attempted to build a career out of a combination of extreme egotism, constant claims of victimhood, and being the most reliable source for the media of the most extremely phrased attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, her own party leader. Phillips is the vacuity of modern politics exposed, a politician for the Instagram generation.
I quite understand that Jeremy Corbyn wishes the largest possible Labour vote, to show that radical politics are not as electorally unpopular as the media claims. But I suspect the loss of Jess Phillips’ seat is something to which he could secretly reconcile himself.
I have a lot of time for John Hemming, the LibDem MP defeated by Phillips in 2015. Formerly one of the few genuinely free spirits in parliament, Hemming is a strong supporter of Palestine. In October 2014 he voted in parliament to recognise a Palestinian state. He was one of 17 MPs – together with Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Caroline Lucas – who signed a letter calling for an arms embargo on Israel. He has chaired meetings for Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine on IDF atrocities and Palestinian human rights. Jess Phillips, by contrast, is a militant supporter of Israel.
John Hemming has also appeared alongside Respect at anti-EDL meetings. He is a doughty campaigner against the ultra-wealthy’s use of libel laws and super-injunctions. He has also continued a long campaign to help those suffering from the abuses of secrecy in family courts.
I should make a disclosure here. When I was sacked by Jack Straw over my opposition to torture and extraordinary rendition, John Hemming, whom I scarcely knew, contacted me to see if I needed employment and/or financial support. (I make no bones about it, Hemming is very wealthy from IT businesses). I did not accept his kind offers, but take them as part of the measure of the man.
I do hope anybody reading this in Birmingham Yardley will support John Hemming. That hope embraces all the people of the constituency, though I hope especially that members of the Islamic community will read what I have written, consider its implications, and withdraw any support for Jess Phillips. If anybody has any friends or family in the constituency, ring them up and tell them to support John. Forward them this. Any mobile activists wishing to try to put a good man in parliament, could do much worse than head to Birmingham Yardley to put in a stint.
Birmingham Yardley 2015
The Tory Governor General to Scotland congratulating Marine Le Pen’s result.
Mundell, is an embarrassment to Scotland, I sincerely hope he’s removed by the SNP in his constituency.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/if-france-had-unionists/#more-94663
Are the Tories xenophobic, with a fascist tendency?
“SNP vote now confirmed at 610,454 – an increase of 21% from 2012. The Labour vote was down by 22%, dropping from 488,703 to 380,957”.
Not bad for a party, whom the media claim are on the wane.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/kezia-dugdale-fact-check-part-681/
RoS, the P&J’s front page headline suggests the Tories had taken over the Highlands, keeping up their long tradition of having bizarre front pages! To be fair, the P&J is a consistent supporter of the union rather than the truth.
But the exact same percentage of the electorate as 2012.
An interesting graph showing the performance of the parties since 2012.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_UMqb4XUAA3QVw.jpg
Interesting statistic and coincidence, Fred, but doesn’t change the fact that more people voted for the SNP this time round than in 2012 – or do you not believe that statistic? Both statistics could be relevant but you’d be best ignore one of them if you want to add a spin.
More people voted for the other parties as well. Using RoS’s methods, the increase as a percentage of the 2012 vote, would mean the Conservatives increased their vote by 131% on 2012.
Not my figures.
http://www.electionsscotland.info/downloads/file/351/slge2017_summary_results_data
2012 figures.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_local_elections,_2012#Results
The figures aren’t in dispute.
If the SNP increased their vote by 21% it means the conservatives increased their vote by 131%.
That’s what your figures say.
Fred, RoS appeared to be counteracting the inaccurate unionist press reports that try to suggest the SNP had a disappointing election. This is not the case and I think the SNP will be very pleased with the results. Similarly, I think it would be a great achievement if the SNP win 40+ MPs in the forthcoming GE but suspect the unionist press will call anything short of 56 a failure, even though 56 was a phenomenal and one-off achievement. In essence, the press cannot be trusted not to print biased bullshit, while claiming to be something they are not. My opinion anyway!
However is some occasions the Tory candidates had to wait until the tenth round to be elected, many weren’t first preference.
In other words people didn’t vote for them, which ultimately skews the Tory result.
You can claim the 131%, but in my opinion it doesn’t reflect how the voters voted.
The council elections always make SNP support look smaller than it is. Since the party has a strong vote in all the areas where Independents stand and get elected to local government.
Highlands, Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles, Argyll & Bute, Aberdeenshire, D & G and Borders.
RoS The voting figures given are first preference votes only.
JOML The percentages show SNP at exactly the same level as they were at in 2012, around 32% of the vote. But in 2012 they were on the rise, to peak in 2015, now they are on the decline. The Conservatives are on the increase, a considerably higher share of the vote than in 2012 and rising.
JOML
” Similarly, I think it would be a great achievement if the SNP win 40+ MPs in the forthcoming GE”
____________________
So it would be a great achievement if the SNP lost up to 16 seats?
Can you talk us through that?
Habb.
I think JOML, is being perfectly realistic with his figures, although it would be wonderful to take the whole 59 seats or even keep 56 seats, 40 plus seats is still a respectable number out of 59.
You must remember the SNP, are not just fighting against the unionist parties, Labour/Libdem/Tory, they’re also fighting against a hugely biased media machine. Which could influence those less aware of the unionist machinations.
RoS
I’m not disputing the realism or otherwise of JOML’s figures, merely puzzled by him saying that a loss of up to 14 seats could be seen as a “great achievement”.
With that reasoning one could equally say that substantial losses by the Labour Party at the GE would also be a great achievement and that, conversely, substantial Conservative gains at the GE would count as a great defeat.
context is everything Habbs,
Leicester FC have done well to avoid relegation this season. That counts as an achievement most seasons. They surpassed wildest expectations and won the league last season. The champions of England are happy to avoid relegation!!! crazy but true.
Similar for SNP, I’d guess.
The tories winning any seats is a disaster. For the whole country.
That graph that you have posted there makes no sense. You can compare the council election first preference vote between 2012 and 2017 but nothing else in it can be used as a comparison with them. It shows the SNP’s 50% vote share in the general election and compares that to the Scottish Parliament election where it totals up the constituency and list seats when everybody knows that it is almost impossible for a soaraway party like the SNP to win more than a very small number of constituency seats.
Voting for councillors is not the same as voting for parliamentarians. I had to leave for work before my 2015 Postal Vote arrived. I got one of the staff in Aberdeen to call a workmate who lives in Yarmouth to allow my son to send him my Postal vote and he carried it 3000 miles to me. I filled it in and asked another mate from Tees-side to carry it back to the UK and post it. This time the Postal Voting Papers arrived the day after I left but I did not consider it important enough to ask people to help out.
Craig just did a blog entry using an opinion poll asking how people would vote in a general election and seemed to think it should correlate with how people vote in the council elections.
Was he wrong?
French Presidential elections since 1974.
The Front National – under the leadership of the Old Bruiser and then of his daughter – has contested all of the 8 Presidential elections since 1974, with the exception of that in 1981.
It got into the run-off 2nd round on two occasions – 2002 and 2017.
Here are the percentages obtained by the FN candidate in the 1st round:
1974 : 0,75 %
1988 : 14 %
1995 : 15 %
2002 : 16,8 %
2007 : 14,5 %
2012 : 18 %
2017 : 21 %
The run-off 2nd round percentages were :
2002 : 17,8 %
2017 : 33,9 %
Two aspects are noteworthy :
1/. The 2nd round score of Mme Le Pen was almost double of that of her father’s 2nd round score in 2002
and
2/. The FN’s score in 2002 only increased by 1 percentage point between the 1st and 2nd rounds, while in 2017 it increased by almost 13% between the 1st and 2nd rounds.
Possible conclusions :
1/. The “dyke” built around the FN by the other parties held but the waters have mounted
and
2/. M. Macron had better get his finger out in addressing the socio-economic concerns of those FN voters who did not vote for the FN on purely racist grounds.
Wild cards at present are :
1/. The results of the general election in a month’s time (the question of the “Macron majority”)
and
2/. The extent to which Mme Le Pen will be successful in rebranding her party
Indeed, but of course in 2002 her father faced a right wing opponent so he did not have so much of a pond in which to fish for new support.
Yes – but remember UKIP…
Tom
I do indeed remember UKIP but the 1974 – 2017 FN figures do appear to show a certain trend over the decades, don’t they.
Interestingly enough, the start of the FN at the 1974 Presidential (with a mere 0,75% score) does coincide more or less with the end of Les Trente Glorieuses..
Watch out tomorrow evening all BBC 1 viewers
….In addition, Mrs May and her husband Philip are also expected to appear on BBC’s One Show on 9 May, …….
Party leaders to take part in BBC election programmes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39845685
She stops at nothing.
Bibi made one his theatrical gestures today on screen. He crumpled up the new Hamas charter and threw it into the rubbish bin. There’s a peacemaker.
His troops have just shot and killed a 16 year old Palestinian girl firing 20 shots indiscriminately.
And US F15s planes are in Israel training with the Israeli air force. Probably practising over Gaza to frighten the people living in the rubble with little or no electricity.
You forget to mention that the girl launched into a frenzied stabbing attack against the police officers whilst shrieking ‘Allahu Akbar’. She left a suicide note describing herself as a ‘shahid’, so I think she knew what she was getting herself into.
Apparently the BBC has offered Mr and Mrs Jeremy Corbyn the same opportunity to appear on the One Show.
I wonder if the Corbyns will accept……
the rules over coverage the BBC always likes to quote at those who complain about their bias and favours to celebs and politicians of the main parties as well as the runaway Tories of UKIP, have been thoroughly flouted, they are bending over backwards and would offer their backsides up to Maggie May if she asked for it.
Trumpism has overgrown the BBC, for example those who lost all their seats the local election got slavered over all day long, with much sophistry and abandonment stories, whilst those parties that gained 40 councillors the Green party of England and wales, were blotted out of the news.
what a pathetic show of bias.
You’re right. England & Wales Greens + 40 seats. Scottish Greens + 5 seats. Plaid Cymru + about 35. SNP + 6 but presented as – 7.
A real praise the Tory success fest from the BBC. Hilariously resulting that night in a guest reviewing the papers who thought the Tories had won Glasgow City Council! As if.
I shall have my shorthand pad out. Lol.
“Jess Phillips, by contrast, is a militant supporter of Israel.”
This (and much else here) is just a smear of Jess Phillips – from what I can see she has said very little on the subject of Israel or Palestine and being a member of Labour Friends of Israel does not make you a militant supporter of Israel except in the eyes of the mentally deranged who cannot comprehend that there can be degrees of view between Hamas and Netanyahu.
” …being a member of Labour Friends of Israel does not make you a militant supporter of Israel except in the eyes of the mentally deranged…”
This is drivel of the worst kind. It is axiomatic that any MP joining this organisation subscribes to its aims which, in general terms, are to support Israel right or wrong, until the cheques stop coming.
Can you cite a single instance of this former MP having voted or spoken against the policies of the fascist Netanyahu government?
bevin
Many of us on this Blog… Agree..Cos we See…. The evil Bastards Have Murdered Another Child
Child 20 meters away..
Teenage Palestinian girl ‘executed in cold blood,’ witnesses say
(Updated: May 8, 2017 6:38 P.M.)
http://maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=776923
lets examine the need for this organisation and compare it to other countries, especially commonwealth countries who should theoretically have a far larger friends circle than this UN creation, very much acting like a rogue state today.
Friends of Australia represented at the heart of main political parties?
Friends of New Zealand? after what the 28th Maori regiment did for the UK in ww1?
Friends of any of our EU partner countries, you know, countries we have a common history with?
FoI have displayed split loyalties and have unleashed a thoroughly discredited and vicious campaign against alleged anti semitic persons here, but only those who are in the public view and are of publicity interest.
FoI are open to manipulation and our foreign policy seems to be written by them.
I think it is fraught with danger if we can’t distinguish between a genuine state and one that reigns with violence and Apartheid for those who are supposed to be living in peace according to the Balfour declaration, FoI are supporting the violence meted out by giving legitimacy to an unjust repressive state. There is nop justification for such secretively funded organisation that fosters split loyalties, amongst our public representatives only.
Why is it that these elected representatives don’t ask for a mandate for this from voters, are voters OK with their support for violence against children?
Someone tell me what Kuenssberg is on about here. The heading is a contradiction in terms relating to May’s record on the matter,
Immigration and Theresa May.
Why May is keeping immigration target
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39845154
I’m not sure that M. Macron is envisaging cancelling the Le Touquet Agreement – rather, he appears to have talked at a re-negotiation with a special focus on the case of unaccompanied child migrants stuck in Calais.
A simple abrogation of the Agreement would not necessarily be in France’s interest.
Firstly, it might act as a pull factor bringing even more illegal immigrants to Calais; this is unlikely to be popular with the locals (many of whom are rather Mme Le Pen-friendly, as it happens).
Secondly, it would make necessary a considerable intensification of boarding controls by the ferry companies, especially as regards freight traffic. That, in turn, would lead to substantial delays which are unlikely to be popular with Continental freight traffic operators. Delays which would merely add to those arising out of the UK’s exit from the Customs Union……
Habb.
Re your last paragraph, Brexit will cause all manner of obstacles, I’m under the impression Macron is pro-EU, not really a favourable outcome for Theresa May and her bungling Brexiteers is it now. Expect years of delays and hold-ups, Calais, Gibralter etc.
RoS
I think you will find that practising politicians – unlike members of the internet “community” – are somewhat more pragmatic than you imagine.
That is because they are in positions of responsibility and answerable to a greater of lesser extent to their people – unlike internet armchair politicians and pundits who can say (but not do) anything that comes into their fevered little minds.
Answerable to the bankers… other than that fair point, well made.
Le Pen, she makes a perfect wolf to scare all the good folk willingly back into their pen, held open for them by the neo-liberal shepherd, despite the invitation to lush and empty pastures elsewhere. The flock will still be eaten, anaesthetised and flattered all the way to the abattoir.
giyane
Glen Aint a Troll…and you kNOW IT
Russia remembers its war dead.
Russia is celebrating Victory Day with festivities all across the nation marking the 72nd anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945. Dozens of Russian cities are staging military parades, concerts, firework displays and other festive events.
https://www.rt.com/news/387635-russia-celebrates-victory-day/
RT did a vox pop in NY. Just one man out of very many people asked knew of Russia’s part in the defeat of the Nazis, Berlin, Stalingrad and the loss of >20 million Russian lives overall.
Whenever such events happen in the UK we’re accused of living in the past or celebrating war.
The experience that the Soviet Union went through in the War is something that the UK, thank God, has never come near to having to endure. Followed by seventy years of misrepresentation, sanctions and threats of annihilation it has given rise to an understandable necessity to remember how their forebears resisted a savage invader and punished the most disgusting regime that has ever existed.
This year as Russians celebrate Victory Day, all over the lands that the Red Army liberated statues of Russian heroes are being demolished and celebrations of SS units, which were raised to practise genocide against the inferior slavs, are being held under the protection of UK, Canadian and US troops. And in countries governed, as is Ukraine, by those who claim the mantle of Hitler’s most fervent collaborators, fascists like the OUN whose fanaticism was such that the Wehrmacht found itself forced to control them.
The situation in Britain on Armistice Day is rather different. It was not always so: I can remember when Old Comrades Associations marched into services of Remembrance all over England and every third word they spoke was of praise and respect for the Red Army soldiers whose sacrifices and courage saved hundreds of thousands of British lives. And millions of those destined otherwise for the death camps.
“The experience that the Soviet Union went through in the War is something that the UK, thank God, has never come near to having to endure. Followed by seventy years of misrepresentation, sanctions and threats of annihilation..”
________________________
..and preceded by twenty years of totalitarianism manifested through criminal state terror and class genocide (continued and expanded into Eastern Europe during and after the war).
Not to mention the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact entered into by the two representatives of 20th century totalitarianism known as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Re the camps, German communist Margareta Buber-Neumann had experience of both the Soviet gulag and a Nazi concentration camp (she was handed over by the Soviets to the Nazis at Brest-Litovsk after the practical accomplishment of Molotv-Ribbentrop) – and said the Soviet version was worse.
BTW, the German KZ was Ravensbrueck and the book she wrote about her experiences in the camps of totalitarian Nazi Germany and the totalitarian Soviet “Union” was called “Under Two Dictators : Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler”. I’d recommend you to read it but your Trotskyite bosses probably wouldn’t allow it
(Cue : Buber-Neumann was a Polish/German/Japanese spy)
Yes-her father-in-law was the philosopher Martin Buber. He was related to Karl Marx. Buber was a man who disagreed with Theodore Herzl. And who also believed in a binational (Two state) solution to the Palestinian matter.
Indeed. And her husband Heinz Neumann was a German communist who lived in the Soviet Union after Hitler came to power. Unlike his wife Margarete he was not handed over to the Gestapo by the NKVD after the partition of Poland because Stalin had him shot in 1940 along with a number of other foreign communists then resident in the Soviet Union.
Nice guy, Uncle Joe, good to see that some people still seem nostalgic.
“class genocide” !! that is an interesting concept. Would it be class genocide to put an end to the privileges of the wealthy?
Such ideas trivialise the realities of actual genocides. And are intended to do so.
This entire rant arguing that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were equally pernicious is derived from neo-nazi apologias developed by Holocaust deniers. This, for example,
” Margareta Buber-Neumann had experience of both the Soviet gulag and a Nazi concentration camp (she was handed over by the Soviets to the Nazis at Brest-Litovsk after the practical accomplishment of Molotv-Ribbentrop) – and said the Soviet version was worse.”
is a form of Holocaust denial. As is the entire tenor of the Habbabkuk “Nazis were not that bad” theory. It was developed at great public expense by the Research Department of the Foreign Office after the war. And used, in the first instance, to persuade the public that Germany ought to be re-armed, invited into NATO and the Nazis rehabilitated. See General Gehlen…
Who in the Ukraine government claims the mantle of the fascists? The fascists in Ukraine are a much smaller force electorally than they are in Putin’s Russia. You really are losing it.
Yes the war dead and the sacrifice of the Russians and the other Soviet Republics, including the Ukraine (who lost millions to the Nazis as well) and Uzbeks (yes I read the piece MAcky linked to as well) should be honoured – and you really have to have lived in the former Soviet Union to understand the deep reverence there is fro the war dead, especially on the May 9th – but I’m afraid that you do not express reverence by resorting to lies as Bevin has done. Most ordinary Russians know that the Ukrainians also suffered immensely from the Nazis and would not use May 9th to make attacks on their erstwhile comrades. Bevin should bury his head in shame if he had any.
No similar faux outrage iro the Habba-Clown whose only response to the horrific account of the Nazi treatment of the 101 Uzbeck Red Army soldiers, was to use it as an anti-Russian opportunity to divert to another atrocity ?
A little known account of the fate of 101 Uzbeck Red Army soldiers in this moving piece on the BBC;
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39849088
As opposed to the better known moving accounts of the 22.000 Polish officers, high officials, policemen and sundry notables executed by the NKVD at Katyn and elsewhere in 1940 on the orders of Stain and Beria.
I don’t know if you read much fiction, but you might enjoy this:
http://www.berniegunther.com/book/man_without_breath/
Very well researched too. I liked it.
Thanks, Glenn, but I find that if one reads this blog assiduously enough there’s little need to buy political fiction 🙂
It seems that the Russian archives concerning the 19.000-odd Poles who were exterminated by the Soviet criminals in 194o in places other than Katyn are still closed.
The Russians seem keener to commemorating their role in destroying the 3rd Reich than in admitting their role in committing class genocide both in their own country and in Easter Europe and the Baltic Republics.
The curious thing about this massacre is that the ammunition recovered from the site was all German. The evidence, not to mention the form book, all pointed then and still does to this being a crime committed by the Nazis.
But Habbabkuk represents a faction in the European right which always supported the Nazis as a ‘lesser evil’ than the Bolsheviks that they were set up to destroy. It was only briefly and under the joint compulsion of Churchill’s patriotic Tories and Bevin’s Labour movement, after the surrender of France in 1940, that the Tories, fathers of appeasement and friends of fascists in Europe, found themselves swept into a war to destroy the Nazis.
They were inclined to accept Hitler’s offer and buy the survival of their empire with continued complaisance as fascism ran riot in Europe and took aim at the Soviet Union.
Seventy years on Habbabkuk persists in a hatred of Russia and of the democratic principles of socialism that compels him to attribute the crimes to which the Soviet Union put an end-the death camps, the racial persecutions, the eugenic enormities- to the Bolsheviks. As a dog returns to its vomit so fascists return to their hatred and misrepresentation of their enemies.
Bevin,
Don’t be crazy. There is no doubt whatsoever the Russians were responsible for Katyn.
Ah, yes. That famous dictator, ‘Stain’ Lol. I knew a descendent of his-a DJ. His stage name was ‘DJ Stains’.
Macks
Tell us about British colonial outrages in your native Cyprus.
Do you think that colonial outrages are funny? Or do you think that they are impossible to conceive of?
No I don’t. But I admit to finding Macky funny (if that helps).
Here’s a general link iro your interest in British colonial outrages; Cyprus is at No.6;
http://listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil-crimes-of-the-british-empire/
Corbyn has said that the Brexit issue is now decided and Labour will concentrate on seeking to protect jobs post Brexit. Nothing about Scotland. We’ve just to leave too according to him.
When did Corbyn question the Tory government about their refusal to explore the EU’s offer of a separate Brexit deal for Scotland? He hasn’t even mentioned it.
All Scotland ever has been to Corbyn – and Metropolitan left wingers like him – is a place that helpfully sent a few dozen Labour MPs to Westminster. He thinks we’ve to Brexit so we can be kept on and maybe we’ll start sending Labour members to the Commons again. Treacherous wee mediocrity.
When did the EU offer a separate Brexit deal for Scotland?
Professor Miguel Maduro, former Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, gave evidence to a European Parliament committee last week. He said there was no obstacle to a separate deal for Scotland. He cited the fact that Denmark is in the EU but Greenland – which has autonomy but is part of the Danish state – is not in the EU.
Professor Maduro said there was nothing to prevent Scotland and Northern Ireland staying in the EU while remaining in the UK.
This was reported in The National newspaper last week. But of course was airbrushed by the BBC.
The National’s Andrew Learmonth also reported in February that the paper had been shown documents by EU officials who had drawn up contingency plans for a separate Scottish deal.
The Scottish Government put such a proposal to Brexit Secretary David Davis but he knocked it back without discussion.
And what else he said:
“Of course this will be complex to organise in practice. It will require a border inside a member state because Scotland and Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom, but it will not be impossible. But he admitted it would “politically problematic” and the consequences could make it difficult.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/general-election/scotland-could-have-stayed-in-eu-and-uk-post-brexit-1-4435852
Theory and practice are two different things.
The problem being the intransigence and the autocracy of the Westminster Tory government.
Having a hard border at Gretna while still part of the UK under the current devolution settlement is never going to be viable.
If the UK government says there’s no need for a hard border between Eire and NI after Brexit then why would there be a hard border between England and Scotland if Scotland stayed in the UK and the EU?
The hard border is effectively between NI and mainland Britain. To get a plane or a ferry you have to show a passport, people can’t just walk across, movements to and fro will be logged after Brexit.
Scotland would be a different matter, there would be no control at all.
For once I agree with Fred. It is a diplomatic impossibility and anyway an extremely stupid idea. Independence is the way to stay in the EU.
I of course want independence in the EU too. It’s the fact that the possibility of a separate deal wasn’t even discussed that rankles.
No reel, the result of the referendum is was for Brexit now All national political parties have to abide by it, sucks as it does.
Who knows, made if you hadn’t voted for the snp in 2015 last year then we might not have had a Tory majority or a Brexit referendum and we wouldn’t be having this debate eh?
How did the SNP winning 56 seats to the Tories 1 seat in Scotland help the Tories gain a majority in the 2015 GE?
That is hard to answer. And not least because the Scots Labour candidates had, for the most part been carefully selected by warmongers and privatisers to mimic the worst habits of the stereotype Tory plus the Tammany Hall customs of corrupt local machines. The world is a better place without them, even supposing that they had supported the democratically elected leader of the Labour Party.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/11/jeremy-corbyn-absolutely-fine-with-second-scottish-independence-referendum
Get the referndum, go independent, stay in EU.
For some traditional Labour supporters, it might be worth mentioning that John Hemming has been a member of a Trades Union for many years – not in IT, but as a semi-professional jazz musician, he’s in the Musician’s Union, and has been consistent about supporting unionism and has been involved in promoting unionism with the Lib Dems.
The few Scottish Nationalists who occasionally and humbly offer their opinions here would probably appreciate clarification of the use of ‘unionism’ in your comment. But they may be too shy to ask. Can they assume that it does not refer to the savage oppression of the once-proud Scottish nation by the bloody-handed tyrants of Whitehall, please?
Peter Malcolmson, a widely respected former Liberal Democrat councillor in Shetland has endorsed the SNP candidate Miriam Brett.
Carmichael is going to find it difficult that’s for sure.
Also the Scottish Greens won their first ever council seat in Orkney. The SNP won their first ever seat in Shetland. Added to that, the Greens are not standing a candidate in Orkney & Shetland this time so it’s a clear run for Miriam Brett, who seems to be a good young candidate.
Carmichael must have been banking on to defending the seat in 2020 when memories of the judges’ remarks about his lack of honesty might have faded a bit more.
“the Greens are not standing a candidate in Orkney & Shetland this time”
Nicola told them not to.
The Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy was published today. Pupils are consistently performing worse than in 2012, abysmal reading.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00517651.pdf
In Holyrood today they are debating how to get the word “British” removed from Transport Police uniforms.
Rather disingenous, fred? Abysmal reading? Well it isn’t too much different to previous years. One of the factors wrt to the S2 results is that C for E is proving harder to bed in than anticipated, especially in Secondary. There is an undoubted performance ‘dip’ for many at entry to secondary. Many theories for this:
over optimistic primary assessments, onset of puberty, social disruption due to formation of larger peer group.etc etc
Overall the relative decline is not serious and could easily be explained by various temporary factors if indeed these are significant, but the issue may be what the position was in previous years. i.e. is it declining from a poor starting position. Well that is rather debateable. Is there a consistent decline? Need a few more years data to make any useful conclusions.
Large class sizes and low teacher numbers could also be to blame.
The son of a rich Spanish surgeon studying Medieval Manuscripts at St Andrews is subsidised by the Scottish tax payer to the tune of £9,250. A Scottish primary school pupil gets £4,814.
Yes well that’s privilege for you. Are you suggesting a genuinely equitable distribution of resources and incomes? I’d certainly go for that.
The pupil teacher ratio is certainly significant but there is not a simple relationship. There are many intervening variables. One of the real problems of doing education research is that it depends on clever statistics. And clever statistics are frequently too clever by half.
Yet I couldn’t get a grant to do my Ph.D. on ‘Motivic Development in the music of Max Reger.’ Rofl.
I read in my copy of the hilarious comic-strip newly pushed into my letter-box by ‘Conservatives.com’ that we are to have ‘A good school place for every child’ (sic). Quite how this will be achieved with the current loss rate among the teaching force remains to be seen. Maybe the hapless, hopeless Tories are about to reinvent The Lancasterian Monitorial System. Now that would be good for a laugh.
I had one of those too! Only looked at the back page (since that’s how it landed on the floor, face-first), and it had – I was bowled over to read – “Strong, Stable Leadership” . Well I never! Every Tory that’s been interviewed in the last couple of weeks has (entirely spontaneously) used the _precise same phrase_. Now that’s a rare coincidence.
It also included a couple of highly unflattering, not to say photo-shopped, images of Corbyn. Pretty cheap shots all round.
Israel bringing in foreign doctors to allow force feeding of Palestinian prisoners who have been on hunger strike for six weeks.
Some Israelis are going on a salt water only diet in sympathy. They were shown on RT who also reported other Israelis barbequing meat outside the prisons and trying to waft in the smell. Charmers.
Israeli activists ‘thought it nice’ to hold BBQ near Palestinian hunger …
22 Apr 2017 – Palestinian inmates are currently taking part in a mass hunger strike. … RT: What do you make of the actions of the right-wing group that threw barbeques near the prisons?
http://www.rt.com/op-edge/385681-palestine-prison-hunger-strike
27 April 2017 – A group of students at Manchester University are on a hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners. Their action comes as students’ unions across the UK face growing scrutiny over the lawfulness of their anti-Israel stance. The five hunger strikers said their …
http://www.rt.com/uk/386333-israel-palestine-boycott-protest/
_____
I applaud John Hemming for his long standing support of the Palestinians who are living under a cruel Occupation.
Another former Lib Dem MP David Ward, who has consistently supported the rights of Palestinians, was banned as a candidate by Farron.
Everything seems to be lining up toward further spectacular ‘motivational events’ in the near future.
and by Cleggover. Jenny Tonge too.
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2013/03/05/222216-israel-flag-wavers-plan-to-re-educate-mp-david-ward/
Shame on Clegg and Farron for doing that.
There is an LDFoI. Chair Gavin Stollar
https://ldfi.org.uk/
Used to be run by Monroe Palmer. Clegg gave him a peerage and he is now the president of the LDFoI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Palmer,_Baron_Palmer_of_Childs_Hill
Cleggover? LOL so witty.
Why have I always called him that? Because he once boasted about the number of leg over situations he had been involved in before Ms González Durántez snapped the idiot up. He will never be forgiven by me for colluding in the passing of the Health and Social Care Act 2012>>>>NHS Privatisation.
Where is he now btw?
You have to allow for her second childhood.
But, my larger point is I’m not sure if extreme supporters of Palestine (to the point of extreme hatred of the State of Israel), realise that there can be no peace with the Palestinian peoples unless and until the J**ish and Palestinian peoples can be friends and coexist as such. Surely this is not complicated to understand?
Further politicians who are friends of Israel are not by definition Palestinian haters. I seriously doubt any of them are at all. Understand that Mary–it’s a proverbial no-brainer.
Finally, with Trump’s new initiative, very early into his first term (unusual), should surely be supported in every way?
I need no lessons or lectures on Palestine from the likes of Alcyone, previously known as Villager, who is another troll on here.
His/her usual function on here is to copy and paste long tracts of the writings of the guru known as Krishnamurti. His/her other function, apart from trolling, is to bolster Israel and to write soppy little notes of support to the other troll, Habbbbbab, Boil and Trouble.
Why not hammer home the advantages of all progressives working together. The alternative is more of the same: war, division, inequality, environmental devastation, under investment and a distinct lack of vision.
Know anything about this group? There’ve been a slew of articles relating to them recently. Who are they? Are they trustworthy?
http://www.progressivealliance.org.uk/
Earliest wikipedia entry is from this month: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Progressive_Alliance_(UK)&oldid=779143585
I believe there is a connection to Dr Louise Irvine who is standing against Hunt as she did at the last election.
She fought successfully for Lewisham hospital.
‘In 2017 a “progressive forum”, organised by the South West Surrey Compass group, saw members of the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party agree not to campaign in the General Election, when they selected Irvine as the best placed candidate to oppose Jeremy Hunt in his home constituency. Steve Williams, chair of South West Surrey Compass, said “Yesterday’s meeting was a ground-breaking moment for the 2017 general election campaign in South West Surrey. Jeremy Hunt is a deeply unpopular MP amongst many of his constituents who hold him responsible for the current sorry state of the National Health Service.”.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Irvine
Appear to be an offshoot of: https://www.compassonline.org.uk/
Labour could easily work on our behalf in an endeavour which makes obvious sense:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/south-west-surrey-labour-party-louise-irvine-steve-williams-kate-townsend-jeremy-hunt-general-a7725446.html
Instead they eject 3 party members with over a century of membership between them, for campaigning on behalf of Dr Louise Irvine against Jeremy (C)Hunt.
“Labour” by which you mean the National Executive Committee and the General Secretary are enemies of Corbyn and are working hard to bring about his defeat and that of the ideas to which you appear to subscribe. They are Tories, imperialists, warmongers, zionists and implacable opponents of socialism.
It is a mistake to confuse what “Labour” does with what Corbyn, supported by the great majority of Labour members, is attempting to do.
Trying to explain this on the doorsteps of my constituency at the moment.
“National Executive Committee and the General Secretary”
Was referring to their dead hand on the steering wheel.
The National is reporting the obnoxious and extreme views and links exhibited on the social media accounts of several Tories elected as councillors across Scotland last week.
This following on from the suspension of seven Tory candidates during the campaign for various things including advocating violence against opponents, anti-Muslim remarks and liking social media posts by far right groups.
Brexit has clearly encouraged all sorts of far right trash to stand as Tory candidates in Scotland and Tory HQ doesn’t appear to have done anything to prevent it.
Don’t expect BBC Scotland to be doing a documentary about it though. Even though any other state broadcasting organisation in democratic countries would be doing just that.
Given the strong possibility of most of the UKIP vote going Tory this time, could a hefty swing from Labour to LibDem not let the Tory in? That would be rather ironic, to put it mildly.
Yes, indeed Brian, this also means that the terminally ill and bed ridden woman from Norfolk, Mrs. Blackie, standing in JC’s seat in north London, can split the vote there. She is standing because of the blame and claim culture the stooges on the PLP under Blair has passed in the past, which apparently ‘denied her sufficiently strong painkillers on the NHS’.
Now given that she’s flying high on cloud nine most of the time, she obviously can’t see that the salvation does not lie in privatising and wrecking the NHS further, but that it lies in better staff training and more staff, less PFI/PPI’s and more money for mental health, currently treated in the UK’s prison so it seems.
She is being used, imho, and I hope that she will survive this fiasco she took upon herself. She obviously knows that she will just split the vote, how could she possibly represent her constituents voters in Islington, when she is bed ridden.
Having read an interview with her I was expecting a crackpot but she seems reasonable.She is standing to draw attention to the need to reform the compensation culture around NHS errors, a subject which gets very little media focus.
Corbyn has a 20,000 majority and his popularity in Islington has likely increased as he has not falled for the traps right wingers have set for him regarding the perception of his constituency. Corbyn will be returned comfortably.
” They [ ie, the Labuour NEC and General Secretary ] are Tories, imperialists, warmongers, zionists and implacable opponents of socialism.”
________________________
I wonder if the people who write the sort of stuff reproduced above (Bevs in this example) will ever realise that it’s this sort of over-the-top bollocks which just puts off ordinary, sensible people?
Totally counter – productive. Keep up the good work, Jeremy will thank you 🙂
Of course, it’s the sort of junk pumped out regularly by the extreme left.
Which probably explains why the extreme-left never gets anywhere come election time.
Take the Trots, for example – there are probably fewer people who vote for them than there are Trot factions fighting like ferrets in a sack over who’s the true representative of the murderous old totalitarian.
Trots my arm. There are fewer trots left in this country than there are Austin Atlantics. And that’s not many. Don’t show your ignorance.
Yes, that’s my point.
Basic Reading 101 recommended.
Bevin is even in this country – he likes to interfere in the affairs of other countries and then tell people off for expressing opinions on his favoured states.
Don’t worry, Anon1, he and his ilk will carry on regardless.
Which is great because
1/. it makes it possible to identify the enemies of the state and some of the unhealthy elements in society
2/. it’s counter-productive (as suggested).
So not too interested in ‘Freedom of speech and expression’, then. Eh, John?
Very much in favour of free speech, D_Majestic and very keen for the enemies of the state and unhealthy elements to be known.
“1/. it makes it possible to identify the enemies of the state and some of the unhealthy elements in society”
___________
Habb.
Which state would that be?
“I wonder if the people who write the sort of stuff reproduced above (Bevs in this example) will ever realise that it’s this sort of over-the-top bollocks which just puts off ordinary, sensible people?..”
A thing is either true or untrue. Do you deny the truth of my characterisation of McNichol and the NEC majority? I suspect that they would agree themselves that they are zionists, supporters of US Foreign Policy on principle, unopposed to Tory policies on immigration, public spending and welfare and regard socialism as old fashioned, outdated and electorally suicidal.
In other words I am right but to your matronly sensibilities such truths should be hidden, unmentioned in respectable circles and, see above, denounced as “over-the-top bollocks.”
Fascism and philistinism are old acquaintances.
For any new visitors to the blog please note that Bevin defines anything he doesn’t like as fascism – those he does use rather a lot of words to make the same point repeatedly.
“…those he does use rather a lot of words to make the same point”
He certainly does try to dazzle us by using knowledge, experience, argument and reason doesn’t he?
At last the Green’s and the SNP, have in part begun to play the unionist parties in Scotland at their own game. The Green’s will not stand a candidate in Moray the constituency of Angus Robertson.
The Green’s have also confirmed they won’t be fielding a candidate anywhere in the Highlands and Islands either, for the June election.
If the blue and red Tories can unite to thwart Scotland’s future, then the SNP and the Green’s can and must back each other where necessary, to stave-off the unionists.
Looks like no Green standing in DCT either Ros. Mundell’s majority in 2015 was 41 votes less than the Green vote.
reel guid.
Interesting, maybe we can do to Mundell, what India did to Mountbatten, or Hong Kong did to Patton, and say adios amigo. ?
Patton?
Nasty Tory, caught using a trolling account, he’s also obsessed with the size of his…erm knob.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15272792.New_Tory_councillor_unmasked_as_influential_arch__BritNat__Twitter_troll_who_boasts_about_his_manhood_online/?ref=mr&lp=1
RoS
When are you going to follow Craig’s example and move up to Scotland?
Its lovely here today on Shetland, or was it Orkney, such idillic days, one forgets so easily. ?
Ros
Going by his claims he’s a hung Majury.
Not so well endowed with brains though.
reel guid.
Nice one ?
It appears for some from the nasty party, it’s all about the size not the quality. ?
Great news Theresa May-hem, has sais that she’ll take part on QT, the bad news is, she’ll only appear on the political show, if no one else is there. Of course we all know how shy and retiring the PM is, poor soul, she doesn’t want to hog the limelight.
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/15272967.Theresa_May_says_yes_to_Question_Time_debate_____but_on_the_condition_that_there___s_no_debate/?ref=mr&lp=5
According to media reports, both the PM and her extremely wealthy husband will appear on the One show tonight. Alas they’ll be no tough questions posed to the PM, and beau, it’s billed as a “soft interview” about things she and her fella like to do.
Aw, how sweet, the BBC, is trying to make Theresa and her dandy appear positively normal. Next we’ll see our Theresa eating chips, oops, she’s already stage managed that press event.
When May appeared on Desert Island Discs a few years ago she told of how she was supposed to speak at a school event in front of parents and the whole school. Apparently she froze. Could it be that her avoidance of live election debates are partly caused by a longstanding uneasiness about public speaking?
More like Lynton Crosby has told her not to appear, as generally the incumbent, has more to lose than their rivals by debating.
In May’s case very much more, with Brexit and the shambles it’s turning into, or should I say has become. Well Mr Junker thinks so anyway.
Reckon your right about Crosby.
As for Theresa’s chip eating. She had the same grimacing expression contestants have on game shows when they’re made to eat insects. I wonder if she was given insects to eat. She’d probably look as happy as most folk do when eating chips.
reel guid.
I think the PM, is definitely a carnivore, the Tories have certainly feasted on the poor and disabled.
The salivating Oxbridge millionaire’s front bench of May ‘s cabinet, undoubtedly see’s Brexit as a chance to inflict more pain and suffering on the most vulnerable in society.
The BBC has invited Mr and Mrs Jeremy Corbyn to appear on the One Show as well.
But will Mr Corbyn and his wife accept, that’s the question…..
Habb.
I think I can answer that question, if press reports are to be given credence. Apparently Corbyn, said if Theresa May’s not taking part then neither am I.
He added that he’d also want to have a těte-á-těte, between himself and the interviewer, with of course the nation looking in.
Addendum, to my above comment.
Apolgies Habb, I’m referring to QT, you of course are referring to the One Show, in that case I cannot add any information.
Our lovely christian PM, Theresa May wants to see the return of a vicious blood sport, no not, persecuting the poor and disabled, although that’s still firmly on the agenda, and will go into hyperdrive once we’ve been officially booted out of the EU.
No the PM wants to see a return of fox hunting in England. Where the chinless wonder, tally-ho brigade get their jollies from watching a pack of dogs tears a fix apart whilst it’s still alive.
http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/theresa-may-says-she-would-like-to-bring-back-hunting/story-30322456-detail/story.html
Who’d have thought that on the outside the PM, appears meek and dare I say respectful. Yet underneath lies a blood craving zealot. ?
Amazing how the ersatz Christians of the establishment never appear to have read the commandments of the religion they purport to espouse. I expect that they couldn’t even find them in a copy of the Bible.
Do you happen to know Mr Jeremy Corbyn’s take on religion (no, not Marxism – Christianity)?
Please contribute by sharing your knowledge.
Why is it relevant to you?
Poor Habba. It must be so frustrating being able to comment unrestrictedly on this internet blog, yet unable to use the internet to answer his incessant questions. I wonder under which repressive regime he lives? Possibly science is suppressed there, the gulags are full of online gamers, and the only activity permitted of an evening is being rude to lefties?
Mere charity dictates that I supply his need in respect of Corbyn’s religion, though. Note the impeccable source:
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyn-my-newish-ancestry-1.58487
He’ll need to edit the URL a little, though, thanks to our spam filter. And, oh dear. I was forgetting that he can’t click on links anyway. Too bad.
The fact that the ultra cynical Tories are in the ensuing weeks before the election wooing the booh-yah foxhunters, the undeserving poor haters, the racists, the banksters and nearly everyone else does not mean they are blood-thirsty, mean, xenophobic or capitalist bastards. It means simply that they want power. Our job is not to think about what they are saying, which is all rubbish, and to deprive them of power on June 8th.
Murdo Fraser saying the Scottish Greens “might as well not exist”. And that they’re “a pointless presence in Scottish politics”.
He then goes on to accuse them of propping up the SNP.
Murdo really doesn’t do logic.
They can’t be a negligible force and be a prop at the same time Murdo.
No wonder he’s never won a FPTP election.
Murdo Fraser reminds me of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, you know the Iraqi minister for propaganda during the illegal invasion of Iraq by the West.
Comical Ali as he came to be known in the West made some outlandish claims, Fraser is of the same mould, we should be referring to him as “Fantasist Fraser” whenever he opens his mouth.
Comical Ali, claimed that US soldiers were committing suicide outside Baghdad. One might compare Labour voters siding with Tories, to be committing political suicide. ?
Phil May, the husband of Theresa May, has revealed it was love at first sight when he met the PM, when the pair were students at Oxford.
Well they do say that beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, I wonder if Phil wore spectacles as a student, that would explain it. ?
I seem to remember that at the age of 24 love was totally blind. My myopia would have passed a scarecrow equipped with a fanny trap, in fact I think it did. Mrs May is a sensible sort of thing that has been put up as a totem by the very extremely nasty Tory party. Personal insults are a little infra dig, at this stage of the proceedings. I’m sure Jeremy Corbyn will win on his and his team’s sound intellectual merit.
The interviewers sat nearer together than this loving couple of ‘in love’ cuckoos. Watch the distance between them and the reluctance to touch, of this ‘loving couple.’
TV commentator ‘ we ask them some serious questions’, well yes, about who is taking the bins out,’ those vital decisions about boys and girl jobs in the house’.
never have we seen a more contrived and plastic interview, interviewing absolutely nothing, what a waste of good broadcasting time, preciously minuscule scrutiny by the media of this ‘Theresa May campaign’ focusing on the person who is scared to be confronted with vexing questions from the public, not on her record as Home secretary or PM.
this campaign says a lot about those who purport to run the country for their own vested interests, a festering sore on the back of society…
Btw i did not know that Abbas had signed the The Oslo Accord 1 some 24 years ago on behalf of the PLO. Interesting fact.
interesting fact what you didn’t know then or interesting fact what you don’t know now?
Well its all hotting up again, with the Eurovision Song contest semi-finals tonight. One wonders when the main event arrives, if it will be possible for Britain to receive less than nul points, or pas d’arrangements.
Of course gone are the days when politics took a back seat. Last years winner from Ukraine went a bit further, by singing a song which contained lyrics referring to Russian soldiers murdering Ukranians. A song that would not have made the finals in days of yesteryears.
One wonders what nations political dirge will win the contest this year. Possibly one of the Baltic nations, who feel that Russia is or has infringed on them in some way.
One also wonders why Israel is allowed to field a contestant in what is a European event. Why not let Zimbabwe or Somalia field a contestant if that’s the case.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the UN, was pulling the strings of the contest in the background.
I’m so glad I don’t own a television!
I’m sure everyone in here will join me in celebrating Europe day today, well EU day to be precise. Today is the day when the EU flag is made more visible to the public, we should all make Mr Shuman proud, by fostering unity among our fellow Europeans.
I wonder if our PM Theresa May is deep in celebration, under the EU flag, rejoicing our good fortune to be classed as European, then again maybe not. ?
Annan Athletic chairman Henry McClelland has been charged with allegedly placing 4,011 football bets, including 430 involving his own club.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39864684
He was elected a SNP councillor for Annandale South just last week.
Labour party is big liar and mess then I never vote for this party!
Con. Is mess this same. Only what I know lib democrat only party your trust 100%