FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Morning!

Wot no Question Time review?

This tells a story.

Clifton North (Nottingham) result:

CON: 47.7% (+12.1)
LAB: 33.8% (-4.2)
NOTI: 11.2% (+11.2)
LDEM: 3.3% (+3.3)
GRN: 2.3% (+2.3)
BPEP: 1.7% (+1.7)

Conservative GAIN from Labour.

No UKIP (-22.0) as prev.

http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87007" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Brexit: Plan Oaf for oblivion"

For Mrs May, this is the benchmark, the thing she has to beat in the coming Tory conference. Whether unwittingly or not, Johnson has done her a favour. Although he may be wowed by the fringe grounds, he has nailed his colours to the mast of something so indefatigably facile that even she should have no great difficulty demolishing it. 

There lies the greatest failure of this ghastly man. Acting as the political equivalent of a bed-blocker, he has been instrumental in blocking rational Brexit plans yet is incapable of coming up with anything sensible himself. This man represents an opportunity cost, the size of which we can ill-afford. 

But there is more. The very fact that so many people are prepared to listen to this malign fool says something about us as a nation. And if no one should take him seriously as a politician, how can we expect anyone to take seriously a nation that supports him?

Richard North on Boris (the Johnson's Johnson)'s brexit plan.

I don't have much time for Richard North but he can write some great lines.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... boils-over" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"'May's totally betrayed us': Tory grassroots' Brexit tension boils over"

If this country had a chance ... it could look after itself. In the second world war we were feeding ourselves

Hmm, Planning for rationing started in 1936, and by 1945 75% of food eaten in Britain was produced in Britain
(https://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Surprisingly the Daily Express didn't approve:

Bringing rationing into effect was postponed several times owing to a campaign in the press led by the Daily Express newspaper, which called rationing an unnecessary folly and government interference with civil liberties. The government finally overcame political resistance and rationing came into effect on 8 January 1940.

https://skwawkbox.org/2018/09/28/new-ac ... isemitism/

A landmark new report by London’s Birkbeck University and the Media Reform Coalition has analysed mainstream media coverage of the Labour Party’s alleged issues around antisemitism. Its conclusions may shock even the most cynical observer of the behaviour of the ‘MSM’.

Not even mildy surprising any more...

tinybgoat wrote:https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... boils-over
"'May's totally betrayed us': Tory grassroots' Brexit tension boils over"

If this country had a chance ... it could look after itself. In the second world war we were feeding ourselves

Hmm, Planning for rationing started in 1936, and by 1945 75% of food eaten in Britain was produced in Britain
(https://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Surprisingly the Daily Express didn't approve:

Bringing rationing into effect was postponed several times owing to a campaign in the press led by the Daily Express newspaper, which called rationing an unnecessary folly and government interference with civil liberties. The government finally overcame political resistance and rationing came into effect on 8 January 1940.

When we had some links to Jay Rayner articles the other day, one of those pointed out that as part of the preparation for rationing the government, with about two thirds of the current population, requisitioned hundreds of warehouses around the country to store and organise supplies. Now they are telling private companies that they need to deal with this, and ignoring the companies when they reply that it is completely out of the question.

What do we think about the Labour video? I thought it was a bit, er, white.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Grim Squeaker and Martin Rowson in conversation!

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Morning all. Just back from a Macmillan coffee morning at the local social centre.

Steve Analyst
‏@EmporersNewC
1h1 hour ago
More
Michael: "If Brexit is a failure your career will be over"
Boris: "Don' worry. I intend to write articles in the Telegraph where I criticise the government and provide over simplified arguments about how it 'should' be done. Then claim it failed because they didn't do it my way."

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:This tells a story.

Clifton North (Nottingham) result:

CON: 47.7% (+12.1)
LAB: 33.8% (-4.2)
NOTI: 11.2% (+11.2)
LDEM: 3.3% (+3.3)
GRN: 2.3% (+2.3)
BPEP: 1.7% (+1.7)

Conservative GAIN from Labour.

No UKIP (-22.0) as prev.

Actually, the main story it tells is of a Labour attempt at "parachuting" gone wrong.

More later......

No matter how many times we get the "more money in schools than ever before" line (which is in any case meaningless), HT's simply aren't buying it.

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Adam Price AM (and former MP) has been elected the new leader of Plaid Cymru, just days after his 50th birthday.

The incumbent Leanne Wood was pushed into a humiliating third (and last) place.

AnatolyKasparov wrote:

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:This tells a story.

Clifton North (Nottingham) result:

CON: 47.7% (+12.1)
LAB: 33.8% (-4.2)
NOTI: 11.2% (+11.2)
LDEM: 3.3% (+3.3)
GRN: 2.3% (+2.3)
BPEP: 1.7% (+1.7)
Conservative GAIN from Labour.
No UKIP (-22.0) as prev.

Actually, the main story it tells is of a Labour attempt at "parachuting" gone wrong.More later......

Very local small numbers, tho 27% turnout may be quite reasonable ?
Enjoyed this -- "The Liberal Democrats came in fourth, avoiding a repeat of the last Clifton North by-election in which they were beaten by the Bus Pass Elvis Party"

Here is a better analysis of the story I linked to earlier:

https://evolvepolitics.com/damning-new- ... reporting/

From the 95 examples found, the report states that “27 examples of misleading and 28 examples of inaccurate reporting [were] made [specifically] in regard to the IHRA definition. Half of the latter were found on TheGuardian.com and BBC television news programmes alone”:

gilsey wrote:What do we think about the Labour video? I thought it was a bit, er, white.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I found the overall feel of it a bit dirge-like and depressing, tbh. Kind of plodding. With seemingly downtrodden, slightly grim-faced and presumably "working class" type people. Do they come across as real people, or a cliche? I'm not sure. Something did leap out at me, though:

"Regional investment banks" - very Ed Miliband!

I'm glad Labour hasn't ditched it. Ed may not have been the leader to win an election, but a lot of his ideas were extremely well researched and based on evidence from what has worked elsewhere and the regional investment banks in particular are key to tackling our low productivity and low wages.

Labour's latest PPB has actually been getting rave reviews from many - even including some Corbyn-sceptic journalists. The negativity on here is slightly unusual!

Production-wise, I started to think that I was watching an ad for the Portman Building Society. Overall, I found it very gloomy and "spark-free". I know it was meant to be portraying a country that is gloomy for very many people - but where was the uplift?



Edited to add - at least it didn't rhyme.

Willow904 wrote:

gilsey wrote:What do we think about the Labour video? I thought it was a bit, er, white.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I found the overall feel of it a bit dirge-like and depressing, tbh. Kind of plodding. With seemingly downtrodden, slightly grim-faced and presumably "working class" type people. Do they come across as real people, or a cliche? I'm not sure. Something did leap out at me, though:
"Regional investment banks" - very Ed Miliband!
I'm glad Labour hasn't ditched it. Ed may not have been the leader to win an election, but a lot of his ideas were extremely well researched and based on evidence from what has worked elsewhere and the regional investment banks in particular are key to tackling our low productivity and low wages.

Will look at the vid later, but the regional investment banks have been going here since 2012
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bpifrance" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Some of the activity is partnering with the scaredy-cat commercial banks and PE companies, who want high returns for zero risk! So the BPI (including one nephew) does the analysis, then sticks its neck out and guarantees a few €Bn of their loans ...
Some big figures displayed a bit over halfway down -- https://www.bpifrance.fr/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Labour's latest PPB has actually been getting rave reviews from many - even including some Corbyn-sceptic journalists. The negativity on here is slightly unusual!

You don't think it's a little heavy on old fashioned union priorities? Working people priorities. Nothing on social care, childcare, the NHS, welfare, nothing that I could see that tried to include the sick and disabled and the care givers.
And backward looking, nostalgic for the days when working class men earned a family wage (but only because the wives mostly stayed at home). Not to mention the rather optimistic suggestion that higher wages would be spent in local independent businesses rather than in McDonalds or online at Amazon and Ebay.
I'm sure it's a very good ad and will go down well with its target audience, but the overriding sense I took away was that the target audience was very clearly not me.

This appointment, rightly, is attracting a lot of "WTF" tweets right now...

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Exec. Agency of @ForeignOffice. We facilitate discreet dialogues between 3,000 people from 150 nations each year

If you don't identify as working class oppressed/class strugglists you don't exist.It's only one and an obvious pitch to be fair,others will address other issues I suspect.Hopefully not via the same ideological prism but more generally/broader.

It's the rose tinted glasses that grated.

I'm all for better wages and better workers rights than we have at the moment.

It's just I don't remember a past when this was the case.

I remember pay inequality and piecework.

I'm really not the target audience, am I?


Edit: We had better pay and conditions under New Labour than we have now of course, because wages stagnated under austerity and the Tories have slashed workers rights, but I don't think New Labour is the golden age this ad is harking back to, is it?

To be honest it is a difficult task to get a message across in a few minutes.Mine would consist of Tarquin holding a vote Labour you tosspot placard

” At a pre-conference meeting, Labour’s national executive committee had come up with a plan to limit Watson’s power by backing a motion for the election of a female co-deputy leader.

Doubts began to creep in over the weekend when some on the NEC realised that giving someone like Angela Rayner, who had been one of the favourites, a bigger platform might be more of a threat to Corbyn’s leadership than was comfortable, but what really swung it was when Watson himself backed the election as he found being deputy leader rather lonely.

Anything Watson supported had to be a bad idea, so the NEC instructed conference to vote against the plan it had originally backed. If Watson were to run a campaign saying “Please don’t make me leader”, he would probably be in with a chance of the top job.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... eat-corbyn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This was posted by Michael Rosen on FB...

No-confidence bid against Board VP for criticising Nation State Law

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/no ... statement/

But look at what has been cited in the argument to unseat her.

Gewolb issued the statement on behalf of the Board, expressing concern about the “regressive” Israeli law, which demoted Arabic as an official language, confirmed East Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and labelled Jewish settlement “a national value”.

Reaction was strong even among Israel’s supporters, who were quick to condemn the Bill for creating first- and second-class citizens. Mainstream Zionist groups in the US said it appeared to move away from the principles of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which protects Israel’s non-Jewish minority.

But in the UK, a petition was instigated by pro-Israel activist Yochy David, who called for Gewolb’s resignation for criticising Israel “without having a mandate to do so”. It garnered 450 signatures in several days.

Now, Lyons has initiated formal proceedings, saying Gewolb’s statement “breaches the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism in applying double standards to Israel”.

Gewolb appears to have become "the wrong kind of Jew"...

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Labour's latest PPB has actually been getting rave reviews from many - even including some Corbyn-sceptic journalists. The negativity on here is slightly unusual!

I liked it okay. I've seen it once. I didn't listen to it. I watched the images and read subtitles. It's a somber time, I'm anxious on a regular basis.

HindleA wrote:To be honest it is a difficult task to get a message across in a few minutes.Mine would consist of Tarquin holding a vote Labour you tosspot placard

My advisors...
Will, Jasper, Alfred, Edmund, Rick, Eddie and Cnut wearing VOTE LABOUR stickers
It's an impressive sight
very moving

Willow904 wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Labour's latest PPB has actually been getting rave reviews from many - even including some Corbyn-sceptic journalists. The negativity on here is slightly unusual!

You don't think it's a little heavy on old fashioned union priorities? Working people priorities. Nothing on social care, childcare, the NHS, welfare, nothing that I could see that tried to include the sick and disabled and the care givers.
And backward looking, nostalgic for the days when working class men earned a family wage (but only because the wives mostly stayed at home). Not to mention the rather optimistic suggestion that higher wages would be spent in local independent businesses rather than in McDonalds or online at Amazon and Ebay.
I'm sure it's a very good ad and will go down well with its target audience, but the overriding sense I took away was that the target audience was very clearly not me.

Are there different versions?

Willow904 wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Labour's latest PPB has actually been getting rave reviews from many - even including some Corbyn-sceptic journalists. The negativity on here is slightly unusual!

You don't think it's a little heavy on old fashioned union priorities? Working people priorities. Nothing on social care, childcare, the NHS, welfare, nothing that I could see that tried to include the sick and disabled and the care givers.
And backward looking, nostalgic for the days when working class men earned a family wage (but only because the wives mostly stayed at home). Not to mention the rather optimistic suggestion that higher wages would be spent in local independent businesses rather than in McDonalds or online at Amazon and Ebay. I'm sure it's a very good ad and will go down well with its target audience, but the overriding sense I took away was that the target audience was very clearly not me.

It did not grab my attention from the beginning, which I always thought was Advertising 101 ?

citizenJA wrote:

Willow904 wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Labour's latest PPB has actually been getting rave reviews from many - even including some Corbyn-sceptic journalists. The negativity on here is slightly unusual!

You don't think it's a little heavy on old fashioned union priorities? Working people priorities. Nothing on social care, childcare, the NHS, welfare, nothing that I could see that tried to include the sick and disabled and the care givers.
And backward looking, nostalgic for the days when working class men earned a family wage (but only because the wives mostly stayed at home). Not to mention the rather optimistic suggestion that higher wages would be spent in local independent businesses rather than in McDonalds or online at Amazon and Ebay.
I'm sure it's a very good ad and will go down well with its target audience, but the overriding sense I took away was that the target audience was very clearly not me.

Are there different versions?

I don't think so!

Three local council byelections this week:

Nottingham - Tory gain from Labour in a ward that split 2Lab/1C three years ago, with a double figure Tory increase to the high 40s and a swing of 9% overall. Given the fact that now absent UKIP (the only other party to stand here then) polled over 20% in 2015, this may be a obvious explanation for the Tory surge - but it has at least as much to do with a botched Labour attempt at "parachuting", whilst the winning Tory, a councillor here until losing in 2015 (he was one of two Tories elected in 2011, as opposed to a single Labour councillor - going further back the Tories swept all three seats in 2007 and 2003) UKIP's top placed candidate last time stood as a "Nottingham Independent" now and scored a respectable 11%, well ahead of the also-ran candidates - LibDems on 3%, then the Greens and finally the local micro-celebrity and perennial byelection candidate Bus Pass Elvis with less than 2% - a previous byelection here in 2014 (which, tellingly, was held by Labour despite a decent UKIP showing) had seen them get headines by beating the LibDem candidate

Salford - Labour hold with over half the vote, down a bit on their 60% this May but still very comfortable. This ward split 2Lab/1LD in the 2004 all out elections and though Labour won the LibDem seat in 2006 the Tories weren't far behind and they followed that up by winning in 2007 and 2008. Since 2010 Labour has won every time, and intriguingly this result was a clear swing to them since a previous 2011 byelection - suggesting a long term trend here in their favour. Tories edged up but still below a quarter of the vote, followed by the LibDems who also had a modest increase but were still on less than 8% - 2004 is a long way away now. Greens and UKIP followed (both little changed, though UKIP well down on their best showing here in 2015) and last the Women's Equality Party with just 2%, even though this area is now home to some of the "media set" following the Beeb's major relocation to these parts.

Lichfield DC - Tory hold, though they were run close by Labour after they had lost a byelection in a nearby ward earlier this year - as in Nottingham, local issues (in this case regarding planning blunders by the Tory run council) loomed quite large. There had been a previous byelection in this ward just in February which saw a significant pro-Labour swing, the winner's resignation caused this contest and their decision to back Labour now - as well as likely voter fatigue - may well have played a part in the result. There was a double figure swing to Labour since three years ago as they polled close to 40% - they may also have benefited from there being no Green after they polled respectably in 2015 (the first election here post boundary changes, when three Tories were comfortably elected) and still got 5% earlier this year. LibDems were down slightly from their showing then after sitting the last regular election out, scoring 17%.

Three contests again to begin October.

Here it is for late-nite viewers --
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[youtube]bpCRQZiQ6Y8[/youtube]

:-

"Do you worst Tory bastards,I ain't done yet"

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entr ... ssion=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think I learn more from a two-hour play, for example, than from years of study

http://www.newvictheatre.org.uk/product ... -coal-age/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HindleA wrote:https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entr ... ssion=true

safe & functional transporter beams
that'd be one hell of a paradigm shift

LOL

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:The Grim Squeaker and Martin Rowson in conversation!

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I do miss the squeaking one.
And some others.
(But not some other others.)

HindleA wrote:To be honest it is a difficult task to get a message across in a few minutes.Mine would consist of Tarquin holding a vote Labour you tosspot placard

Am genuinely confident that that would work.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/se ... l-aid-cuts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Justice 'only for the wealthy': Law Society condemns legal aid cuts