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Membership of UK political parties
Standard Note: SN/SG/5125
Last updated: 24 September 2014
Author: Richard Keen
Section: Social and General Statistics
The Parliamentary briefing paper has been updated a few days ago.
Readers should be aware that, due to the efforts of several parties to bring flexibility to their
terms of membership, what is meant by ‘membership’ is under constant flux.
That means numbers are imaginary - at least, the Tory party membership numbers are fictional. I'd like to know what you all think of it.
This document footnotes a single-source of alleged Tory party membership number increase in the Newstatesman linked below.
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:There's a meme around that the Mirror's entrapment of Newmark is unjustified. Andrew's just queried it for example.
I'm not so sure. This guy is the founding Chair of Women2Win a group dedicated to getting more female Tory MPs elected. Is it really OK for him to be chatting up female activists on-line? Inviting them for tea at his offices etc.?
I can't condone the entrapment. I can't condemn the way the Press (and the BBC) behave with their doorstepping, misrepresentation and smearing, saying that I hope Ed enacts Leveson's recommendations in full, and then say "ah, but this one is alright, because it was a slimy Tory who got caught out". However ......
I'm not upset Nomark has been forced to resign. As you say, his involvement with Women2Win now has to be looked upon with a degree of suspicion (leaving aside the fact that it is exactly the sort of organisation he was so recently condemning); and any MP should have the sense to keep it zipped with 'that' enquiry hanging over their heads. But, as a Tory, the only sense he possesses is one of entitlement, so I guess he thought this acceptable behaviour.
Not sure about the last bit.
Womanisers exist all over the spectrum.
I imagine the journo must have sent out loads of speculative approaches to Tory MPs. The only way I can see public interest is if there's a Rennard "casting couch" element about it.
There is, it shouldn't be forgotten, a rather dangerous bit of Leveson that makes it much easier for police to seize evidence from journalists. That needs not to be implemented.
ohsocynical wrote:Re the latest 'sex' scandal. Huffington post has an article saying it was a tabloid 'sting'.
No one will argue that it's an underhand thing to do...But if it's true, how stupid of the MP to fall for it. You'd think common sense cause him to be wary especially with the recent nude celebrities hacking scandal.
Edited to add.
Just read. Married. Father of five. Serves him right then!
Hadn't thought of that.
The moralizing about marriage makes it rather worse.
I'm highly amused that Grant Shits is trying to tar Reckless as a liar. Coming from him, it sounds like a cross between envy and the sort of spite that ex's have once they've been dumped.
ohsocynical wrote:Re the latest 'sex' scandal. Huffington post has an article saying it was a tabloid 'sting'.
No one will argue that it's an underhand thing to do...But if it's true, how stupid of the MP to fall for it. You'd think common sense cause him to be wary especially with the recent nude celebrities hacking scandal.
Edited to add.
Just read. Married. Father of five. Serves him right then!
Hadn't thought of that.
The moralizing about marriage makes it rather worse.
Doubtless, the terrifying Marr brought this up.
Marr did everything bar giving Cameron a massive, one armed cuddle on camera.
I asked yesterday about all the posts from the W&B section, and whether we could have some of them here. Can anyone help?
In one of them, I talked about "Mission Creep" - and Lo! It came to pass....
Clearly not enough poor people have been cleansed from London. So now the total benefit cap is to be lowered to £23,000 - irrespective of the number of people in a family, the cost of housing, the presence of disability or illness, or anything else.
Suppose you are a large family currently living in Barnet, renting privately. The LHA for a 4-bed there is £370PW, private rents average £500PW.
The maximum LHA you can get is £19,240. You and your large family cannot now get more than another £3,760PA for everything else. The cap includes child benefit and tax credits, carers allowances, all basic individual allowances of JSA, ESA, Income Support.
The only exemptions currently are - DLA/PIP, Support Group ESA, and Attendance Allowance, and people who work enough hours to get Working Tax Credits; although I wouldn't be surprised if the new rules coming in if the Tories win the election don't change the eligibility as well.
Cameron said he will set up 3 million apprenticeships. There are not 3 million young people unemployed at the moment - so who are they for?
Step forward.....older people. I am willing to bet that many more retail giants will follow the example of B&Q and Morrisons and employ thousands and thousands of older people on fake apprenticeships to save wages - while government pretends they've all got proper jobs. Shameful.
People aged between 18 to 21 will not be allowed to claim JSA (or its' income-based equivalent) for more than 6 months. As it is, the ones who claim now must agree to workfare from day one; single people up to age 35 can only get HB if they live in shared accommodation.
43% of all those aged between 18 to 21 who currently claim out-of-work benefits are parents of very young children.
I notice that no mention was made of Universal Credit. If IDS is making a speech at conference, it should be interesting.....
"Poverty is the worst form of violence" - Mahatma Gandhi
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:There's a meme around that the Mirror's entrapment of Newmark is unjustified. Andrew's just queried it for example.
I'm not so sure. This guy is the founding Chair of Women2Win a group dedicated to getting more female Tory MPs elected. Is it really OK for him to be chatting up female activists on-line? Inviting them for tea at his offices etc.?
Wife. Five kids. Trapped into taking a selfie of his willie? I might be old fashioned, but I don't think so.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
Stat from Ashcroft's polling, apparently the Tories can afford to lose 24 seats to Labour, I am assuming that is because they are confident of picking up a few stray LibDem seats, anyway out of those 24 they trail Labour in 22 of them.
I read somewhere this week Labour have dedicated teams in place already in 100 marginal, if true, that's excellent.
Tories says cutting welfare cap would cost 70,000 families £40pw on average (Andrew Sparrow, Guardian)
Bloody hell.
The numbers are fantasy. As are the overall cuts needed in 2016/7. Purely a political trap.
If by that you mean the figures are inflated wishful thinking on the part of the Conservatives - you may be right. But what sort of party would be proud of, and have an ambition to inflict upon people, that order of cut in necessary help?
The numbers are fantasy. As are the overall cuts needed in 2016/7. Purely a political trap.
If by that you mean the figures are inflated wishful thinking on the part of the Conservatives - you may be right. But what sort of party would be proud of, and have an ambition to inflict upon people, that order of cut in necessary help?
Good question.
I don't think they thought them through politically properly either. There'll be few Con held seats that won't be enjoying the influx of London poor that have headed their way.
ErnstRemarx wrote:I'm highly amused that Grant Shits is trying to tar Reckless as a liar. Coming from him, it sounds like a cross between envy and the sort of spite that ex's have once they've been dumped.
I follow him on Twitter and can't make up my mind whether his lies are intentional or he can't help himself and that's why the Tories use him still.
He tells such obvious fibs it fascinates me.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
Lib Dem incumbency v the Tories is fairly strong, to make it worse.
At the most extreme, Paul Burstow has a 25 point boost in Sutton and Cheam.
'Of course, the general Lib Dem collapse will more than wipe out the personal boost, but they'll keep a few seats they shouldn't. Hope Andrew George's St Ives is one of them. Reckon Martin Horwood will keep Cheltenham too, which is fair enough given the Hammersmith and Fulham councillor the Tories have put up.
And of Ashcroft's other missive, which I've just started reading, this immediately leapt out at me:
"Just over a quarter of those who voted Conservative in 2010 said they would vote for a different party in an election tomorrow. Nearly three quarters of these now support UKIP, with most of the remainder going to Labour."
So there we are Dan "fucking" Hodges, the Graun and the BBC. Time for you to write or broadcast a few more 'Labour in crisis as UKIP sweep up their voters' articles, because, obviously, Lord Ashcroft is a screaming pinko isn't he?
Tells me all I need to know about dyes in the wool FibDems. Neoliberals to a man, and barely worth spitting on.
I think it's telling about who are left in the party. All the centre/left activists have left for Labour/Greens etc and it's just the Orange Bookers holding the fort.
Tells me all I need to know about dyes in the wool FibDems. Neoliberals to a man, and barely worth spitting on.
I think it's telling about who are left in the party. All the centre/left activists have left for Labour/Greens etc and it's just the Orange Bookers holding the fort.
Well, quite. Looks like they took the hint when Clegg told them that they had no place in the FibDems. Trouble is for him, there are very few people who actually believe they do have a place in the FibDems.
Ha, ha - I see the Graun has been forced to do a brief article on Ashcroft's polling. I'm pretty appalled at statements like this from a presumably experienced and literate journalist:
"The statistics said just 63% of the people who voted Conservative in 2010 are still planning to vote for the party and half of those have gone to Ukip."
Utterly meaningless. A rush job from the pen of a idiot.
Even for the Express this seems to have been written by someone who is ten.
an unblinking, die-hard minority of the electorate who clearly see us all in the future wearing boiler suits, riding bicycles and hearing about increased tractor production.
By which they mean the likes of us. Mind you. To be fair. You can't get me off tractors for long.
Ah. Nick Ferrari. Used to be called a shock-jock – possibly still is – no reference to either Scotland or to American sportsmen but a radio-presenter who airs contentious views to get the phone-lines ringing. The on-air version of click-bait. Even I though he would be capable of better writing; not, note you, that I expected him to be capable of greater accuracy, nor of viewing anything relating to the Labour Party in even a half-way positive light.
This time, I'm gonna be stronger I'm not giving in...
Going back to Brooks Newmark, the unnamed journalist was a freelance, Tim Fenton has pointed his finger in a certain direction, wouldn't put it past them.
Bit more here on Ashcroft's polling, unfortunately he's not saying too much about potential Labour gains, apart from, at the moment the gains may be more than what is needed for a comfortable majority.
I asked yesterday about all the posts from the W&B section, and whether we could have some of them here. Can anyone help?
They need to be copied over one by one (we can't copy them all at once). I'll see what I can do, if anyone else can help it would be appreciated.
I'll give some time to that project. Let me know where to get them from, where to put them, and which ones to do. Eg., batches by date, by topic, by contributor, or suchlike.
This time, I'm gonna be stronger I'm not giving in...
I asked yesterday about all the posts from the W&B section, and whether we could have some of them here. Can anyone help?
They need to be copied over one by one (we can't copy them all at once). I'll see what I can do, if anyone else can help it would be appreciated.
I'll give some time to that project. Let me know where to get them from, where to put them, and which ones to do. Eg., batches by date, by topic, by contributor, or suchlike.
They'll want to be copied to the 'same' thread here (on the main page). Some of them were re-built on the old site and, because a lot were conversations, I put all the posts as quotes. You can do this for each person by putting their name, in speech-marks, in the opening quote text:
If these figures were repeated at the election the Conservatives would be looking at a recount in Torbay, the most ambitious seat on this list, and would gain Berwick Upon Tweed and Taunton Deane, the second and third.
The Tories can have that one, even if they stand a Hammersmith and Fulham councillor.
Unfortunately, the polling I have already done in individual seats, starting with the most marginal, shows the Tories already behind in 24. This includes Brighton Kemptown, Enfield North and Hastings & Rye
Would be Bye Bye Amber Rudd, ex-wife of scumbag AA Gill, Merchant Banker and slagger off of lots of constituents as wasters who just want to live on the dole by the sea.
Tubby Isaacs wrote:A nice Tory gain from Lib Dems:
If these figures were repeated at the election the Conservatives would be looking at a recount in Torbay, the most ambitious seat on this list, and would gain Berwick Upon Tweed and Taunton Deane, the second and third.
The Tories can have that one, even if they stand a Hammersmith and Fulham councillor.
They'd only be swapping a Tory for another, no great loss really.
Unfortunately, the polling I have already done in individual seats, starting with the most marginal, shows the Tories already behind in 24. This includes Brighton Kemptown, Enfield North and Hastings & Rye
Would be Bye Bye Amber Rudd, ex-wife of scumbag AA Gill, Merchant Banker and slagger off of lots of constituents as wasters who just want to live on the dole by the sea.
What this Amber Rudd ?
Remember Amber Rudd? The hapless Hastings MP who once explained why she wanted to stand in that seat by saying:
“I wanted to be within two hours of London and I could see we were going to win it.”
Rudd followed that up by making her constituency sound like a bleak hellhole:
“You get people who are on benefits, who prefer to be on benefits by the seaside. They’re not moving down here to get a job, they’re moving down here to have easier access to friends and drugs and drink.”
I can see a few Welsh seats way down the list where the Tories are suspect, Vale of Glamorgan and Aberconwy.
Even though current polling doesn't suggest it, Labour have got their arses into gear down the Vale, canvassing at a local level won't always be picked up nationally.
The Tories might have a few problems in Wyre Forest too, where they only won because silly Labour ran against Richard Taylor, the Kidderminster Hospital candidate.
Going back to Aberconwy, Guto Bebb got into trouble the other day by saying a man with mental health problems, Asperger's, had no right to an opinion, Labour pummelled him on that.
Labour Press Team @labourpress 2h
About those Tory membership figures…turns out the Tories have lost over 100,000 members since Cameron became leader http://labourlist.org/?p=59050" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
Turning Tubby's Con defence list on it's head, here is Labour's list it has to defend, there's a fair mix on here, from various locations, but can anyone see the Cons eating into any of these seats, honestly?
letsskiptotheleft wrote:Stat from Ashcroft's polling, apparently the Tories can afford to lose 24 seats to Labour, I am assuming that is because they are confident of picking up a few stray LibDem seats, anyway out of those 24 they trail Labour in 22 of them.
I read somewhere this week Labour have dedicated teams in place already in 100 marginal, if true, that's excellent.
They also have a dedicated organisation..
Movement for Change
We were founded in 2010, but our origins go back more than 100 years to the earliest days of the Labour Movement, when vibrant politics was built by passionate people working together to change their neighbourhood, their community and their country.
We believe that there are people on every street, in every community who will step up to take action on the issues that matter to them.
To date, we have trained more than 2,000 people in local communities across the UK and abroad, to take action on issues that matter to them. Movement for Change activists have run award-winning campaigns on issues as varied as access to fair credit, the Living Wage, poor conditions in the private rented sector and improving bus services.
Membership Options
Your signing up for membership implies agreement with the following statement:
I support the aims, values and objectives of the Labour Party. I confirm that I am not a member of any political party other than Labour and Co-operative parties.
Last edited by refitman on Sun 28 Sep, 2014 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:Admin: quote fixed
I asked yesterday about all the posts from the W&B section, and whether we could have some of them here. Can anyone help?
They need to be copied over one by one (we can't copy them all at once). I'll see what I can do, if anyone else can help it would be appreciated.
Thank you - I'd offer but I have no idea what to do.
Some of them are a bit out of date, though. Perhaps it might be an idea to ask everyone if they want them or not?
Maybe it might be better to do a little precis of the changes so far (I could do it when I get some time) rather than have some poor dab copying them all over?
"Poverty is the worst form of violence" - Mahatma Gandhi
I asked yesterday about all the posts from the W&B section, and whether we could have some of them here. Can anyone help?
They need to be copied over one by one (we can't copy them all at once). I'll see what I can do, if anyone else can help it would be appreciated.
Thank you - I'd offer but I have no idea what to do.
Some of them are a bit out of date, though. Perhaps it might be an idea to ask everyone if they want them or not?
Maybe it might be better to do a little precis of the changes so far (I could do it when I get some time) rather than have some poor dab copying them all over?
Good idea!
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
letsskiptotheleft wrote:Turning Tubby's Con defence list on it's head, here is Labour's list it has to defend, there's a fair mix on here, from various locations, but can anyone see the Cons eating into any of these seats, honestly?
