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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.

Nicktendo86

Nicktendo86

Member
On a completely different topic it was my wife's aunt's funeral today. She was in the met police and they were kind enough to give her a full service funeral. It was amazing, bikes leading the cars to the church, uniformed officers carrying the coffin, even a chopper bowing in mid air.

Amazing send off for an extraordinary woman. The really interesting thing though was, apparently, officers assigned to protection for the Turkish prime minister's visit today got out of that to attend the funeral!
 
W

WayneMorse

Banned
b8fdc3d4-3e8d-4e96-8a10-f2ee70dba138-620x324.jpeg
 
W

WayneMorse

Banned
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xp4x3

Missed this from a while back, but Radio 4's File on 4 has done an excellent program on how austerity and manpower cutbacks has led to prisons in the UK to be increasingly more violent and the already heavily taxed prison workers to be put in life or death situations on a nearly daily basis.

As the prison population grows the government can't be half assed to fund prisons, and this is happening under the party of law and order!
 
M

Maledict

Member
No-one will fund prisons - you won't get a single vote, ever, from increasing prison funding. In fact, you can lose votes because the Daily Mail could run with a 'soft on criminals' headline. Plus prisons suffer from the worse NIMBY effects outside of nuclear dumping grounds - *no-one* wants one near them, so building new prisons is really hard.

So politically, the incentives are all there to run prisons as cheaply as possible, and even privatise them when you can to get rid of the responsibility. When you compare prisons to the NHS, you can see why they haven't ever been, nor will they be, properly funded. As a society we don't reward politicians for fixing prisons or the re-offending rate issues.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Either a) typo, b) they took a sub-sample from a larger poll and ignored the fact that this has a gigantic margin of error, or c) anomaly. Take your pick.
 
U

Uzzy

Member
Jackpot said:
It seems Cameron wants to dilute the TV debates as much as possible until they're meaningless.
Click to expand...

He clearly is, but I don't think it's defensible to have some regional parties in, namely the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and then exclude the Northern Irish ones.

Frankly the whole thing's a mess and it all started when the broadcasters wanted their man Farage involved.
 
M

Maledict

Member
Ofcom wanted UKIP in remember, this wasn't driven solely by the broadcasters.

Personally I think it's a damn shame - the current proposals will probably kill debates off for many years. Anyone who watches the large primary debates in the states knows what will happen - they will be a sprawling mess, with too many people trying to make their voice heard and nothing of substance.

The idea of having specific *regional* parties in the debates for the national elections is damn stupid, and more fool Ed Miliband for supporting that. He's practically signing the death warrant for labour in Scotland.
 
Z

zomgbbqftw

Banned
It was clear from the start that Dave just wanted the Greens in there to hit Labour in the same manner UKIP will hit the Tories. However, Cameron is a lucky general and the broadcasters came to his rescue and proposed this mess and added the Greens, SNP and PC, all of which are to the left of Labour and will eat into Labour's core vote, while UKIP in recent weeks has been talking the talk of the left wrt to taxes, the NHS and benefits in an attempt to appeal to northern White working class voters.

If the debates go ahead (and there is no guarantee of that) then Dave will come out as the big winner just by not saying very much and watching the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, UKIP and PC all tear lumps out of Labour from different angles. The Lib Dems on tax, the Greens on green crap and being trendy metropolitans, UKIP on immigration and apparently moving to the left on tax/NHS, the SNP on nationalism and PC on the absolutely shocking state of the NHS in Wales (if anyone thinks it is bad here, try being ill in Wales).

If Labour had a credible leader it wouldn't be a problem, but with Miliband they will get torn to pieces, especially if the SNP put Alex Salmond forward as their representative for the Westminster elections/debates.
 
W

WayneMorse

Banned
kharma45 said:
So long as there is an oath to the Queen it'll never happen.
Click to expand...

Wait if Sinn Fein gets a majority in the RoI elections next year and Sinn Fein goes into a coalition with Labour this year could it be possible Gerry could become the PM of RoI and Deputy PM of the UK at the same time?
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
ElectionForecast going with 283 LAB - 283 CON, May2015 going with 286 CON - 273 LAB, ElectionsEtc 283 CON - 278 LAB. LadBrokes' odds at 283 LAB - 283 CON for favourites.

I believe this is what they call "squeaky-bum time".

It's surprising that the three rather different methodologies are so closely clustered around the same data points, you'd expect more variation. Cameron gets first shot at coalition, but not a single predictor gives CON + LD + UKIP a majority, and I can't see the SNP doing it, so that'd basically guarantee minority government and probably another election in 6 months time. Labour could pull off a coalition with the SNP according to a few of the predictions, provided that Sinn Fein always abstain, but some still leave Labour and the SNP short; you'd need Lab + SNP + LD to get over the finishing line; that hardly seems stable.

I genuinely think there will be a second election this year if the trend continues.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Nicktendo86 said:
I think its pretty safe to say now that the chances of labour being the largest party is near zero.
Click to expand...

All of the above are predictions based on what has happened before. If the election were to happen tomorrow, Labour would be the largest party based on the polls - ElectionForecast has LAB 301 - CON 254, ElectoralCalculus has LAB 321 - CON 242, and so on. Labour not ending up as the largest party is being predicted because traditionally, there's a slow shift away from the opposition to the government. That's fine in ordinary election seasons, but with this one being anything but ordinary I think we have to keep in mind older trends may not be so useful.

Even ignoring that, if the predictions average 284 for CON seats and 279 for LAB, then even if the predictions are only predict 3 seats wrong (so, barely wrong at all), Labour could still be the bigger party by 282 to 281, so definitely not near zero at all.

This is also disregarding how much impact the debates will have entirely, and also what happens in Scotland.
 
Nicktendo86

Nicktendo86

Member
The debates had little effect last time other on the sales of 'I agree with Nick' t-shirts, I think the only people who watch them have made up their minds anyway.

Sure I read some data that suggests that anyway...
 
Y

Yen

Member
Is there any possibility of a Con-LD-Ukip coalition? It's what I've been expecting for a while.
I don't have much confidence in Labour to even achieve a coalition govt
 
J

Jackpot

Banned
What a bunch of blundering arseholes.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/20...tted-to-sabotage-house-of-commons-documentary

Tory MPs 'plotted to sabotage House of Commons documentary'

Rightwing backbenchers unhappy at filming in chamber plotted to knock over cameraman, but were thwarted by Westminster security, BBC2 film-maker says
Click to expand...

Cockerell said a handful of backbenchers hatched a plot to knock over a member of the production team who was filming on the floor of the Commons during prime minister’s question time, forcing proceedings to be brought to a halt.

But the plan was thwarted after it was rumbled by Commons security and the filming, which took place over the course of a year, went ahead unchecked.
Click to expand...

“There was a plan by backbenchers to knock our cameraman over and proceedings would be suspended and we would be blamed for it,” said Cockerell at the programme launch on Thursday.
Click to expand...
 
W

WayneMorse

Banned
kitch9 said:
Labour built schools with health spas in...

There's fat that can be cut.
Click to expand...

Implying they'll actually cut the fat.

They'll just cut back on teacher's wages, increase class sizes and cut funding for in class supplies.

In America primary schools are so cash strapped they have to rely on private charities to get funding for things like school supplies, do you really want that to happen in the UK?
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
WayneMorse said:
http://www.theguardian.com/educatio...school-funding-david-cameron-education-budget

Dave has said that education funding levels will stay the same, but wont increase for inflation. Meaning a 10% cut.

Oh well it's not like these kids need any education to serve the ruling class so I can see why this is happening.
Click to expand...

And again, Labour bleat on about this, but where are their policies with details on how to fund them? Oh, thats right. Balls is still trying to do that, along with the rest of their policies they have announced and still haven't paid for.

I note that no one posted about how Labour would reduce the cap on tuition fees by a third, potentially crippling many universities.


EDIT - I wanted too add - The Tories policy announcement for the funding isnt great. I think it's electioneering. I think if they have any sense they'll announce closer to May that they're adjusting the policy to cater for inflation. I get frustrated with the opposition parties not coming up with their own, financially researched proposals - not just including, but especially Labour. Where is Ed Balls?
 
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