Details of where, etc are shown in the accompanying charts over at the Guardian. Lib Dem gains are in the westerly direction - which to me, is a healthy sign. As for the Labour loss -Britain Elects @britainelects
Last night's council by-elections: Lib Dems gain four seats; Tories take a Labour marginal
7:35 AM - 15 Jul 2016
297 297 Retweets
131 (Politics Live, Guardian)
Exactly !RobertSnozers wrote:If any country is prepared to negotiate trade deals with us before our relstionship with the EU is resolved, I will literally eat my hat, and you can hold me to it. I'll put it on YouTubegilsey wrote:David Davis still in la la land.Quoted from AS blog, article in the Sun apparently but I'm not going there.Davis said the government’s “first order of business” will be to begin negotiations with the aim of striking trade deals with non-EU countries such as the United States and China within two years. This would give Britain a free trade area “almost twice the size of the EU” before the negotiation with the European bloc is complete, he said.
Davis insisted Britain would be able to put in place new trade agreements to come into force at the point of exit from the EU having been fully negotiated beforehand.He really hasn't a clue.Davis said Article 50 should not be triggered immediately in case EU countries act “irrationally” and refuse tariff-free access to the European single market because the UK will not compromise on ending free movement so it can control immigration.
Can anyone explain just how this in your face, blatantly corrupt practice is being ignored by practically everybody? How is it that all involved are not behind bars?nickyinnorfolk wrote:Bit of a sense of out of the frying pan and into the fire regarding NiMo's replacement Justine Greening.
https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/07/ ... tory-peer/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;Just months after the successful 2012 Olympics, Justine Greening – the new Education Secretary – backed the sell-off of six tennis courts, a football pitch and a playground belonging a local school in her Putney constituency, of which she was a governor:
Just months after the sale, the school was handed over to a private Academy Chain ARK.
The chairman of ARK at the time happened to be a multi-millionaire investment banker called Stanley Fink.
Fink also happens to be a Tory peer who has served as co-Treasurer of the Conservative Party.
The sold-off school fields were subsequently bought by a private developer.
This is the woman now in charge of all our children’s schools.
Ignore all that. Jeremy Corbyn was once given a bike. Bloody, freeloading communist.HindleA wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/go ... ar_twitter
Government sneaks out bombshell memo showing David Cameron gave his aides a £283k golden goodbye
Happy to accept that, though it's hardly gone unnoticed in West Yorkshire.AnatolyKasparov wrote:Tbf maybe he didn't even know? It is apparently a very private affair with only family and close friends attending.PaulfromYorkshire wrote:I'm sorry this may sound wrong, but I'm a bit shocked that Smith felt able to launch his bid on Jo Cox's funeral day, but is delaying it because of the (obviously horrifying) attack in Nice.
RIP Jo
Of course, Reed is my MP.SpinningHugo wrote:I suppose he can do this as the manifesto has no constitutional standing either in the party or country
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/de ... my-corbyns" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
There's been a huge and now quite prominent increase in the number of homeless people sleeping rough along the main road near my house. Not sure if it's as bad as in 2010/11 yet, when Finsbury Park had the very odd juxtaposition of several middle class people having an early game of tennis while all the rough sleepers, of which there were very many, were rousing themselves from the grass around the courts. Tory Britain. Again.HindleA wrote:http://www.onemk.co.uk/8203-outrage-fro ... story.html
Outrage as Milton Keynes Council admit it destroys homeless people's tents
I wonder which prominent politicians were saying this, repeatedly, prior to a recent referendum. Yet, 'not trying hard enough', apparently.gilsey wrote:George Osborne’s austerity choked off the recovery: Brexit is his legacy
Aditya Chakrabortty
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... dum-revolt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;of all the spending on infrastructure on which work is actually under way, almost 50p of every pound is going to London. The north-east is getting less than a penny. Alongside this are the findings of Steve Fothergill and Christina Beatty, showing how the Tories’ welfare cuts left the prosperous south-east and booming inner London almost untouched. According to the authors, the areas hit hardest were “older industrial areas, less prosperous seaside towns, some London boroughs”. In other words, Brexit-land.
His aping of Ramsay, was so ill judged, so ignorant, and so lacking in anything close to judgement for a Labour politician that I thought he was trolling at first, then I realised he was actually serious and despaired. If anything demonstrates the dislocation from the values the party was founded on, and has stood by for the last 110 years, that statement was it. He is a whig not a socialist.AnatolyKasparov wrote:Of course, Reed is my MP.SpinningHugo wrote:I suppose he can do this as the manifesto has no constitutional standing either in the party or country
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/de ... my-corbyns" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
He called for a National Government a few weeks ago and it is fair to say that his estrangement from Labour now is about more than just Corbyn.
I will be quite surprised if he stands again (as a Labour candidate, at any rate)
That'll be because of events referred to here :ohsocynical wrote:The Brighton, Hove and District Labour Party has been suspended and its recent election results annulled, according to its new secretary.
On Saturday (July 9), the city’s Labour party voted for its new executive committee – and Corbyn supporters took the top jobs.
But the recently-elected secretary Greg Hadfield said this afternoon the branch received a letter from Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), which said it had been suspended.
Read more: http://brightonandhoveindependent.co.uk ... 4ETbVO5tZ
Rail minister Claire Perry resigns as Southern commuter chaos continues
Tory MP had admitted during Commons debate about Southern rail owner GTR to being ‘often ashamed to be rail minister’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ry-resigns
David Cameron secures extra £282,000 in severance pay for personal aides despite official advice
'I do not believe there is a case for awarding higher sums than those for which the contract allows'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 38171.html
RogerOThornhill wrote:Just on the above, the "full academisation by 2022" has all the makings of being edu's answer to net migration "down to the tens of thousands".
Flat refusal to acknowledge the evidence that shows that it really is impossible to achieve.
Our local group is going to do the same (1) on the agenda: Politics.yahyah wrote:When did the ban start ? May have been conveniently just after his CLP met.
Some branches are still meeting for social evenings instead of formal events.
Wonder if they will be banned from communicating with each other about what's been happening ?
Nobody can play by the rules these days.ohsocynical wrote:Dylan Strain @DylanStrain 16m16 minutes ago
Labour MPs to take a secret ballot to decide whether @OwenSmith_MP or @angelaeagle will go forward to lose to people's choice Jeremy Corbyn.
ohsocynical wrote: Comments being made that any sort of CLP meetings had been banned by the executive, but Smith seems to have ignored the ruling.
Lock the doors! Before she comes back.TobyLatimer wrote:"Justice Secretary Liz Truss"
I can't even believe that's a thing.
Is it a thing ?
Fecks sake
Some meetings can still be held:ohsocynical wrote: Comments being made that any sort of CLP meetings had been banned by the executive, but Smith seems to have ignored the ruling.
CLP Secretaries, LCF Secretaries, Labour Group Leaders, MPs, Regional Board
Dear all,
We have been contacted by many of you today following speculation online and in the news that the NEC has taken steps to suspend party meetings.
I thought it would be useful to clarify the situation. Formal notification from Labour Party head office will be sent to you shortly and this will include more information.
The NEC has agreed that all normal party meetings at CLP, branch and LCF level shall be suspended until the completion of the leadership election.
The only meetings which may be organised while this timetable is in place are:
· Meetings solely for the purpose of making a supporting nomination in the leadership contest or for essential Annual Conference business with the explicit permission of the Regional Director.
· Campaign planning meetings for by-elections or devolved mayoral campaigns.
· Any other meetings, for which there are exceptional circumstances, with the explicit permission of the Regional Director.
thatchersorphan wrote:Post-Brexit, Faragenstein’s Monster is running amok http://www.refractory-online.com/post-b ... s-monster/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks, an excellent article.The rest of this scenario starts very quickly to look like a dystopian nightmare. Play it forward far enough and at some point decades in the future the son of David Miliband will send back the Gove T100 to the year 2010 to defeat Ed Miliband and the Brexit T1000 with a bacon sandwich.
I always liked Citizen Smith ....JonnyT1234 wrote:Citizen Smith: power to (some of) the people!
ohsocynical wrote:
Well you might want to ask John McDonnell what he is playing at. He brought this into the party.RobertSnozers wrote:It's getting so toxic in Labour at the moment that the idea of walking away and ignoring politics altogether is increasingly tempting. How is anyone supposed to make a difference with all this crapflying around?yahyah wrote:A poster on Cif was at the meeting in Brighton.
She uses her real name, seems to be verifiable via the local press and Ramblers group.
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/16488160" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Would something like a "Truth and Reconciliation commission" be any use? I found an article from 2010 (by Mark Seddon) suggesting it was needed then, maybe a shame it didn't happen.ephemerid wrote:I don't know what the truth is any more.
We still have no idea who lobbed a brick through Angela Eagle's constituency office window, but it seems that many people accept the vandal was a Corbyn supporter; we do know, however, that Eagle's reasons for cancelling her visit/speech at a Luton hotel were not, as stated, because of threats - it was the hotel which cancelled, because staff had not been informed that it was a political thing and the hotel doesn't host political events.
Johanna Baxter claims that her phone number and email address were published on Twitter by Corbyn supporters; yet there is a Tweet she posted in June asking people to contact her with their ideas on the forthcoming NEC meeting which included those details. Originally, she referred only to "legal threats" regarding the NEC meeting (ie. the letter prepared by Corbyn's team for the meeting) and didn't mention any others until prompted by a TV interviewer.
The ban on meetings was issued on 13th.July - after 83% of 90-plus CLPs had voted for full confidence in Corbyn; the remaining CLPs now cannot have a vote of confidence/no confidence because they've been stopped from meeting at all (apart from for NEC-approved reasons) until the contest is over in a month's time. Reports from places like Brighton and Bristol describe completely different events depending on which side is doing the reporting.
There have been threats and intimidation on both sides, as far as I can tell. Each side claims the other is worse. By imposing a ban on meetings, and moving the goalposts on the voting rules at the last minute, the NEC has, in my view, contributed to the bad feeling.
Maybe there really are "militant" types on the Momentum side - but by no means are all Corbyn supporters in Momentum; equally, there are some very high-handed tactics coming from the top and from those who want Corbyn gone, and some of the latter are not above dishing out abuse.
People using social media who are well-known have had to deal daily with all manner of trollery and nasty people issuing threats and abuse; this is not new. I am not convinced that ether side is as bad as they are painted, although it seems there has been an escalation recently over this.
I am certainly not convinced that this is misogyny - whatever the likes of Jess Phillips has to say.
What all this suggests to me is this - there is a powerful group of people at the top of (and behind) "New" Labour politicians, they will not let go of their power base easily, and Corbyn represents a real threat to their control of the party; there is a very vociferous group of people who are trying to wrest that control away from the top, they want the power back in the hands of the membership, and they are being influenced not only by the Momentum people but also by the high-handedness of the NEC, whose recent behaviour has done nothing to calm the waters.
Labour should split. I cannot see how any leader can unite the party now. The positions are too polarised and too entrenched. It's very sad.
Labour cannot move on until the party as a whole faces up to what the architects and supporters of “New Labour” felt they had to do to ensure their project was successful. It cannot move on until democracy and accountability are restored, and party members are returned powers to make policy and select candidates. The Gerrymandering of the party conference, the obsession with spin over substance, the abuse of those – myself included – who have been black-listed and blocked from standing as candidates, all of this has to go before we can consider “New Labour” in the past sense.
