FlyTheNest

Morning all. Labour lead at 1 point on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 1st September -

Con 34%, (+2)
Lab 35%, (-1)
LD 7%, (no change)
UKIP 14%; (-2)

APP -23 (+2)

Morning. Thank you refitman for the update on the GoDaddy webhost difficulties affecting this and other sites recently.

Cameron seems to be making a complete hash of his measures to clamp down on those engaging in jihadi activities ....



Just listening to Nick Clegg gulping his way through a R4 interview - pretending they are a responsible, fully functioning government in their responses to the jihadi / terrorism 'threat'. He's not convincing. But he's also in an invidious place because Cameron clearly announced some measures that are probably illegal - and certainly unworkable. What does he think would happen to those refused reentry into the UK after being in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere re jihadi activities? Does Cameron want our very own Guantanamo - a huge detention centre set up outside the UK? Do they just float back into jihadi circles and get more radicalised and alienated? It's nonsense.

But what worries me even more is something that someone else (I think Technical Ephemera?) raised yesterday. Cameron appears to be saying he doesn't need to get parliamentary assent for engaging in military action in Iraq / Syria ... he can just tell them afterwards. Terrifying and wrong - really wrong - if so.

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Working on the wild side.

From the Guardian tickertape thingy:



I heard the most twisted interpretation of the Shaun Wright debacle the other day ... a Tory commentator on the radio said how disgusting it was that he would resign from the Labour party to save them embarrassment but wouldn't step down as PCC. Utter rubbish - he resigned from the Labour party because they called him on his actions and were most likely to have suspended and then chucked him out.

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Working on the wild side.

Now that is really scary.

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Working on the wild side.

Quite fitting UKIP are throwing their very own high powered motor mouth at this critical debate ..... (why are people so worked up about vacuums?)

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Working on the wild side.

Well quite.

But never mind. I saw yesterday that they'd managed to get a cross party agreement not to have any 'contentious votes' in Parliament before the Scottish referendum.

Does that include the exemptions to the Bedroom Tax private members bill introduced by Andrew George - think it's due for debate and vote this week? I'm interested to see how the Lib Dems in particular behave over that one.

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Working on the wild side.

And that's an understatement. It was a gulp every 10 seconds.

But it's not really funny, I know - and that's the problem.

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Working on the wild side.

Because the Which? top rated vacuums are going to be banned because of their wattage.

And, according to the Mirror, any above 900watts will be banned after 2017.
Which seems odd as the Miele I bought that was advertised by John Lewis as having a good energy saving mode is 1200 to 1300 watts.

Is this one of those green for green sake kind of things though ?
If you have a more powerful motor surely you'll be running the vacuum cleaner for less time than a weaker wattage one, as the dust will get sucked up quicker ?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vacuum-cleaner-ban-you-need-4125836

yahyah - our snap sister rate just exploded. I too have a Miele vacuum and bought from John Lewis! I know, incredible isn't it .....

Yes, I know about the change in the EU law ... but it doesn't seem something to get really excised about when there are assurances that we already have very effective vacuums using a lower wattage motor - and, no doubt, more of the top brands will be adapting and improving to fit within the regulations.

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Working on the wild side.

Is yours cream coloured ? spooky indeed.

Red - bright post box red - to match the vim and vigour with which I banish the dust and dirt from our house (every now and again). Mr Riots has his own vacuum - because he wants to use it for manly things like building grime and cleaning Rayburn chimneys.

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Working on the wild side.

That was probably Simon Heffer on Any Questions. He seemed determined to get the word Labour into his answer as often as he could.

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Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many - they are few."

Good morning,

I've now caught up on yesterday - thanks to ohsocynical for the Mike Hancock links. He sounds even more peevish than usual in the radio clip.

Edited

I really don't know how those brackets got there . . .

Fantastic bit of non-news

AndrewSparrow ‏@AndrewSparrow 2m
Boris Johnson confirms he won't stand in Clacton - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blo ... 81942ffc32 …

That line was being pushed by a few online Tories last week. It is of course utterly risible.

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB 30s
Clapton (sic.) by-election date fixed for October 9th

Let's also mention the 7 pointer shall we, even if it is ComRes?

Curious that YouGov seems to be giving smaller Labour leads than several other pollsters at the minute.

Could it be connected with the revision to their methodology that they announced last week? That would certainly account for some of the UKIP increases on the pre-Carswell polls.

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COWER BRIEF MORTALS. HO. HO. HO.

I think that only made a point or so's difference - they have tended to produce higher Tory figures than many other pollsters for a while now.

Agreed. Some of their weighting has been a little odd; you don't think YouKnowWho has got a job with them do you?

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COWER BRIEF MORTALS. HO. HO. HO.

That's Call-me's birthday. What a present that'll be.

Will there be PMQs tomorrow?

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Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many - they are few."

It is, according to the calendar on parliament.co.uk

Carswell would get about 2 votes in Clapton.

Call-Me has a birthday? I always thought Tories reproduced through binary fission.

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COWER BRIEF MORTALS. HO. HO. HO.

A joke by comedian Tim Vine about a vacuum cleaner has been voted the funniest at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

He won with the one-liner: "I decided to sell my Hoover... well it was just collecting dust."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-28838287

Perfect protest vote to send the Conservatives into a tizz.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index. ... -32-ahead/

http://desmog.uk/2014/09/02/exposed-law ... think-tank

Independent think tank my ass.

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

I've been tracking this one since it was announced. Here's the way they've expanded:

pre-2010.....5
2010/11.......4
2011/12......21
2012/13......45
2013/14......1

The other point which gets missed is that they operate schools all over the country - there are 9 regions and AET have schools in all of them.

If you think about local councils, the advantage they had for schools was...that they were local. How do schools in AET see themselves when their head office is almost certainly halfway across the country?

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

£1m cash injection for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence

Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for the Thames Valley, Anthony Stansfeld, has announced a block grant for organisations that support victims of crime across the region.

http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2014/09/02/103300-1m-cash-injection-for-victims-of-sexual-assault-and-domestic-violence/

I smell bribe...What do you all think?

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

It will be interesting to see where this polling goes as the novelty wears off in the next week or so.

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Release the Guardvarks.

Education Funding Agency postpones work on Highridge site in Caversham after agreeing to scout out new locations for the Heights free school

http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2014/09/01/103292-education-funding-agency-postpones-work-on-highridge-site-in-caversham-after-agreeing-to-scout-out-new-locations-for-the-heights-free-school/

They [the EFA] put huge, steel double gates across the entrance to the Highridge site and then had to take them down because they hadn't got planning permission. And so it rumbles on...

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

Govey's free school marginal seats disaster tour rumbles on!

Picked up this little snippet on Twitter.

Lib Dem folk say their pre manifesto stretches to 80 pages and contains more than 300 policies

Over kill or what

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

And a school had its funding cut 2 days before opening...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-29018097

Meanwhile the DfE puts out a puff piece on how many schools they've opened. No-one's ever opened schools before of course.

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

Smacks of never mind the quality - feel the quantity.

Personally I'd rather they had one good, honest, principled and workable policy - that they remained committed to despite whatever bribes and challenges presented themselves - than a bumper jotter book of maybe one day promises.

Oh and afternoon Ohso and all.

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Working on the wild side.

I've just one of those not-real-poll-thingies on YouGov.

The question - if you could vote in the Clacton bye-election how would you vote?
So far - LDs/other/wouldn't vote/don't knows - all at 5%
UKIP - 20%, Tory 21%, Labour 25%

Obviously the responses come from anywhere and do not reflect what the Clacton mindset is......interesting though.

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"Poverty is the worst form of violence" - Mahatma Gandhi

The latest from Hodges. Don't be fooled by the title:


because he's still swinging that very tired axe several paragraphs in ... and it's the same old warp:


His kind of future Labour party aint the kind that appeals to me ....

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Working on the wild side.

Snap: so did I and took a screenshot to prove it.

What might he be on about? Anyone?

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Working on the wild side.

On Clacton, I think we should bear in mind a very real possibility of tactical voting to give the Tories a kicking alongside those who really believe in UKIP.

So, people may well think less than a year from the GE that rather than voting Labour or LibDem, their best political message is to hold their noses and have a big dig at Cameron by voting UKIP.

Having myself urged folk to vote tactically on the doorstep on many occasions I would be somewhat hypocritical to disapprove of this.

Dreadful news. Hope it's not true but there have now been several tweets - including one from Channel 4.

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Working on the wild side.

Close to whose home?

Please let it be Gove.

Welsh Tories possibly?

There was a rumour that he was being lined up to succeed Dacre as editor of the DM...maybe judging that if they're not going to win there's little point in staying on.

After all, baiting Tristram Hunt in the Commons from opposition might appeal for a while but would pall after a while.

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

If it turns out to be Gove - better than I could ever have expected.

Mind you - I don't think the Welsh Tories are particularly looking forward to 2015 either. One of my clients was saying to me that she was surprised to find herself thinking that if she was in Scotland she might actually be thinking of voting YES to escape the ghastly Cameron and co ... forever. We discussed how difficult it was for Darling and other Labour MPs in the Better Together campaign to have to promote the union while we've got the government from right wing hell in power. She then said - and can you imagine the situation in Wales for Labour politicians if they were asked to promote the union under the current government - even the Welsh Tories would probably find it hard to do that ...

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Working on the wild side.

This might relate to that rather ominous tweet that the same person put out after the "You will make pupils do EBacc subjects at GCSE or else" story.

odysseanproject @odysseanproject · Aug 31
Don't blame NM for STel story, she's just following No10 orders. There's a worse one coming shortly...

and now...

odysseanproject @odysseanproject · 2h
Nicky Morgan doing big interview for BBC 6 & 10 tmrw

Announcing what I wonder?

National curriculum disapplied for all schools? All schools to be forced to become academies? Gove to be prosecuted wasting £1bn on academies programme?

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

Nah. That's way too complicated.

Amoebas.

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop