FlyTheNest

Krishnan Guru-Murthy ‏@krishgm · 8h8 hours ago
Hats off to @tombradby getting Ed miliband on #TheAgenda. Brilliant zoology. Chemistry between Ed and the other guests intriguingly weird

Thomas Hemingford ‏@THemingford · 8h8 hours ago
#TheAgenda Actually good to hear @Ed_Miliband doesn't read the papers much. Newspapers are full of bullsh*t anyway.

Bertie Buttons ‏@bertiebuttons1 · 8h8 hours ago
#theagenda Myleene has done a charity single! That should abrogate her conscience from paying her fair share of tax while many go without.

Patrick Strudwick ‏@PatrickStrud · 8h8 hours ago
Myleene Klass' knowledge of politics, theory and structures, is right up there with Miliband's knowledge of Hearsay lyrics. #TheAgenda

John O'Shea ‏@politicalhackuk · 8h8 hours ago
Nice work by @Ed_Miliband on #theagenda - showing a sense of humour and perspective.

JamieJones77 ‏@JamieJones77 · 7h7 hours ago
Staring at a squealing lunatic rich person and calmly restating your point. Best Ed's done for ages and I'm not a fan. #theagenda

refitman wrote:Morning all. Tory lead at 1 point on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 17th November -

Con 33%, (+2)
Lab 32%, (no change)
LD 7%, (no change)
UKIP 15%; (no change)
Green 8% (+3)

APP -18 (+9)

55DegreesNorth wrote:Morning folks,
Did anyone notice Sajid Javid saying, on "How the rich get richer" last night, "Look, we've just come out of the worst recession for 300 years".
I thought OGRFG denies that there ever was a recession?

Sports Direct has lost our custom
We have five children attending local schools and sixth-form college and we use the local gym. As a family we have a large demand for trainers, shin pads, gym wear, racquets etc and we were quite happy using Sports Direct to provide us with these. Until the weekend that is. Perhaps we were naïve, but we were shocked to discover its employment practices (Letters, 17 November). We were even more shocked that, after Ed Miliband raised the issue, the company chose to mock him rather than deal with it (or justify it). Perhaps it is not surprising that “playing the man and not the ball” should be the tactic of a sports equipment company, however, this argumentum ad hominem demonstrates their overall attitude: immoral employment practices, contempt for logic and bigoted politics. They have lost our custom.
Martin and Judy Miller
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... our-custom

Some consolation for red team. @LordAshcroft poll today had LAB & CON level pegging in England where CON had 11.5% lead at GE2010.

Tessa Jowell ‏@jowellt 20m20 minutes ago
Ripping up an iconic and well-used athletics track is a strange way of preserving Olympic legacy at Crystal Palace http://insidecroydon.com/2014/11/17/jow ... ics-track/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Jowell criticises Boris plan to ‘rip up iconic athletics track’
... Most groups have seen through the consultation as a means for Boris Johnson to deliver another chunk of the Grade II-listed Crystal Palace Park into the interests of the ZhongRong Group, the Chinese company which has proposed to build a replica of the Crystal Palace at the park’s top site.

The mishandled consultation has seen Lord Coe accused of “world-class hypocrisy” for his company’s involvement in a scheme which utterly undermines previous promises of an Olympic legacy for London. The consultation has created an unusual coalition opposed to the schemes, which includes Tory-run Bromley Council, a group behind a Free School which is included in all four options, and now senior Labour MP Jowell...
http://insidecroydon.com/2014/11/17/jow ... ics-track/

Seats could be left vacant if more Tory MPs defect to Ukip before election
William Hague says it will be for parliament to decide whether byelection is necessary in event of further defections
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... e-election

yahyah wrote:Morning.

Was a bit distracted but heard a Tory quote on Radio 4 - a spokesman saying something or other showed that 'Labour were not yet ready for government.'

Suspect we'll be hearing that a lot more, and am concerned it will stick with listeners/viewers.

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Seats could be left vacant if more Tory MPs defect to Ukip before election
William Hague says it will be for parliament to decide whether byelection is necessary in event of further defections
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... e-election

How late could a sitting MP leave it to jump ship ....? Wouldn't there have to be a cut off point to give sufficient time before the election for another candidate to be found for their deserted party?

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Sports Direct has lost our custom
We have five children attending local schools and sixth-form college and we use the local gym. As a family we have a large demand for trainers, shin pads, gym wear, racquets etc and we were quite happy using Sports Direct to provide us with these. Until the weekend that is. Perhaps we were naïve, but we were shocked to discover its employment practices (Letters, 17 November). We were even more shocked that, after Ed Miliband raised the issue, the company chose to mock him rather than deal with it (or justify it). Perhaps it is not surprising that “playing the man and not the ball” should be the tactic of a sports equipment company, however, this argumentum ad hominem demonstrates their overall attitude: immoral employment practices, contempt for logic and bigoted politics. They have lost our custom.
Martin and Judy Miller
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... our-custom

Just because it's good to hear the views of decent people ... I hope there are many more like this. (No, I'm not imagining there will be a mass boycott of Sports Direct - too much to hope for. But I hope there are some comments being left on their Facebook page or product reviews.)

adam wrote:

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Seats could be left vacant if more Tory MPs defect to Ukip before election
William Hague says it will be for parliament to decide whether byelection is necessary in event of further defections
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... e-election

How late could a sitting MP leave it to jump ship ....? Wouldn't there have to be a cut off point to give sufficient time before the election for another candidate to be found for their deserted party?

After the Clacton by-election, Carswell was quoted saying that there was a convention that there were no by-elections in the last six months of a parliament and therefore there was no need for a defecting MP to resign her/his seat. There is, of course, no requirement that an MP crossing the floor has to resign (although I'm happy to give Reckless and Carswell a good deal of credit and say that I think they did the right thing, and there should be a convention that you put yourself back before your constituents, even if they did it in part at least for PR reasons). I suspect this is what would happen if there are further defections - they would cite the proximity of the next election and decline to resign their seats.

(I welcome the pedantry point about MPs not being allowed to resign but having to engineer their own dismissal).

RogerOThornhill wrote:Can you imagine the chaos if they switched the day before nominations were due in?

RogerOThornhill wrote:

adam wrote:

rebeccariots2 wrote: How late could a sitting MP leave it to jump ship ....? Wouldn't there have to be a cut off point to give sufficient time before the election for another candidate to be found for their deserted party?

After the Clacton by-election, Carswell was quoted saying that there was a convention that there were no by-elections in the last six months of a parliament and therefore there was no need for a defecting MP to resign her/his seat. There is, of course, no requirement that an MP crossing the floor has to resign (although I'm happy to give Reckless and Carswell a good deal of credit and say that I think they did the right thing, and there should be a convention that you put yourself back before your constituents, even if they did it in part at least for PR reasons). I suspect this is what would happen if there are further defections - they would cite the proximity of the next election and decline to resign their seats.

(I welcome the pedantry point about MPs not being allowed to resign but having to engineer their own dismissal).

In which case they could cause maximum damage to the party by switching as late as possible leaving the Tories scrabbling around looking for a replacement candidate.

Can you imagine the chaos if they switched the day before nominations were due in?

Daniel Boffey was probably right when he wrote: “The headlines (relating to the Labour leadership) are distracting from significant problems currently facing David Cameron.”

They certainly seem to have distracted him and his colleagues on Sunday’s paper from writing about Mr Osborne’s dissimulation with regards to the UK’s payments to the EU. In the Observer this important issue was conspicuous by its absence.

However, this edition of the paper did devote the title page and four other pages to a leadership struggle in the Labour party in which the principal heir has specifically refused to stand now or ever.

All of this was inspired by some gutless wonders so confident in their stance that they were afraid to express their views openly.

Paul Hewitson

Berlin

Willow904 wrote:

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Sports Direct has lost our custom
We have five children attending local schools and sixth-form college and we use the local gym. As a family we have a large demand for trainers, shin pads, gym wear, racquets etc and we were quite happy using Sports Direct to provide us with these. Until the weekend that is. Perhaps we were naïve, but we were shocked to discover its employment practices (Letters, 17 November). We were even more shocked that, after Ed Miliband raised the issue, the company chose to mock him rather than deal with it (or justify it). Perhaps it is not surprising that “playing the man and not the ball” should be the tactic of a sports equipment company, however, this argumentum ad hominem demonstrates their overall attitude: immoral employment practices, contempt for logic and bigoted politics. They have lost our custom.
Martin and Judy Miller
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... our-custom

Just because it's good to hear the views of decent people ... I hope there are many more like this. (No, I'm not imagining there will be a mass boycott of Sports Direct - too much to hope for. But I hope there are some comments being left on their Facebook page or product reviews.)

Let's face it, Sports Direct isn't a difficult place to boycott, it's a depressing shopping experience before you even get into the ethics.

It's places like Tesco and Amazon I have trouble with, it's so hard to avoid them. I have to drive 4 times as far to the local independent Co-op to avoid Tesco, I just can't justify the trip every time. And then there's Amazon. We drove 40 miles recently to buy a tent from an independent retailer to avoid using Amazon but with Christmas coming up I've just caved and now I have to feel guilty about contributing to their tax-avoiding, poor employment practice induced profits.

What we need is a government committed to stamping out poor, exploitative employment practices and closing tax loopholes. Hmm....I wonder if there's a party that's pledging to do such things? Labour have the right policies and the right leader. I believe the media is wrong in their analysis of why they're not doing that well in the polls. The truth is that 35 years of Thatcherite greed and individualism has eroded our ability to act as a society and make choices based on what's best for everyone rather than just ourselves. People don't like tax avoidance and zero hours contracts but they do like the convenience and cheap prices that these companies offer. They, erroneously in my opinion, believe there is a heavy price to be paid for being 'fair'. Labour need to show how that isn't necessarily the case. It's a tall order, especially how you help those who can't afford housing with lower prices and rents, without hurting those who are already on the housing ladder, but if Labour can resolve these conundrums, they would probably attract wider support.

StephenDolan wrote: Mass defection leading to a vote of no confidence. Interesting

I wonder how Lib Dem mps would vote? Enjoy the chance to put a distance between the real them and what they've had to do as part of the coalition? So much to daydream about.

Britain’s supermarket sector has suffered its first drop in grocery sales in two decades, according to data just released:

TheGrimSqueaker wrote:Morning all.

@Stephen, Rachel & Chuka have, prudently, only been preprogrammed with a limited of phrases they can use; this has been done with all the remaining Blairites, to stop them getting ideas above their station.

Good performance by Miliband on The Agenda last night with a panel every bit as balanced as QT; ex-Ambassador Christopher Meyer (Tory), Alison Pearson from the Torygraph (Tory) and Myleene Klass (possibly Tory, definitely numpty). As I recall the panel was similarly odd last time he was on, and he came out ahead then too. A selection of comments from Twitter give the flavour:

Krishnan Guru-Murthy ‏@krishgm · 8h8 hours ago
Hats off to @tombradby getting Ed miliband on #TheAgenda. Brilliant zoology. Chemistry between Ed and the other guests intriguingly weird

Thomas Hemingford ‏@THemingford · 8h8 hours ago
#TheAgenda Actually good to hear @Ed_Miliband doesn't read the papers much. Newspapers are full of bullsh*t anyway.

Bertie Buttons ‏@bertiebuttons1 · 8h8 hours ago
#theagenda Myleene has done a charity single! That should abrogate her conscience from paying her fair share of tax while many go without.

Patrick Strudwick ‏@PatrickStrud · 8h8 hours ago
Myleene Klass' knowledge of politics, theory and structures, is right up there with Miliband's knowledge of Hearsay lyrics. #TheAgenda

John O'Shea ‏@politicalhackuk · 8h8 hours ago
Nice work by @Ed_Miliband on #theagenda - showing a sense of humour and perspective.

JamieJones77 ‏@JamieJones77 · 7h7 hours ago
Staring at a squealing lunatic rich person and calmly restating your point. Best Ed's done for ages and I'm not a fan. #theagenda

The figures show that Swansea’s victims are losing a combined total of £130,000 in housing benefit to the under-occupancy policy each month.

TechnicalEphemera wrote:

refitman wrote:Morning all. Tory lead at 1 point on Yougov:

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 17th November -

Con 33%, (+2)
Lab 32%, (no change)
LD 7%, (no change)
UKIP 15%; (no change)
Green 8% (+3)

APP -18 (+9)

Either a sampling error or the Guardian trick of promoting the Green Party is working well.

I suspect sampling error.

pk1 wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-n ... ge-4646673

pk1 wrote:

The figures show that Swansea’s victims are losing a combined total of £130,000 in housing benefit to the under-occupancy policy each month.

http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2014 ... s0.twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yet Myleene Klass complains about stumping up £250 a month out of all those millions she has.......


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

RobertSnozers wrote:Yet in Daily Telegraph land...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... n-tax.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Singer Myleene Klass ‘wipes the floor’ with Ed Miliband over mansion tax
Singer Myleene Klass went 'full Paxman' on the Labour leader during a TV debate in a stunning annihilation of his mansion tax policies

On Twitter this morning there are claims Myleene Klass demolished Ed Miliband on the subject of the mansion tax. Quite why is a mystery. Having watched the exchange, she just sounded like a shouty celeb not engaging very well with Miliband’s argument. If this counts as a political win, God help us all

adam wrote:On the 'no by-elections within six months' convention point - I can't find it anywhere other than Carswell's speech. There was a by-election in February 1997 just a couple of months before the general election.

RobertSnozers wrote:

Tish wrote:

pk1 wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-n ... ge-4646673

Myleene Klass is worth £11 million!!!!

My entire knowledge of her is that she was once in an X-Factor style pop band about 15 years ago (which is no long term money spinner if you don't write the songs). Then she presented CD:UK for a few months in its dying, post Ant & Dec days. I thought she was one of those D List celebs who scrapes by from getting married every couple of years and selling the pics to OK magazine. What on earth has she been doing in the past few years to amass such a fortune?

Adverts.

RobertSnozers wrote:

Willow904 wrote:

rebeccariots2 wrote: Just because it's good to hear the views of decent people ... I hope there are many more like this. (No, I'm not imagining there will be a mass boycott of Sports Direct - too much to hope for. But I hope there are some comments being left on their Facebook page or product reviews.)

Let's face it, Sports Direct isn't a difficult place to boycott, it's a depressing shopping experience before you even get into the ethics.

It's places like Tesco and Amazon I have trouble with, it's so hard to avoid them. I have to drive 4 times as far to the local independent Co-op to avoid Tesco, I just can't justify the trip every time. And then there's Amazon. We drove 40 miles recently to buy a tent from an independent retailer to avoid using Amazon but with Christmas coming up I've just caved and now I have to feel guilty about contributing to their tax-avoiding, poor employment practice induced profits.

What we need is a government committed to stamping out poor, exploitative employment practices and closing tax loopholes. Hmm....I wonder if there's a party that's pledging to do such things? Labour have the right policies and the right leader. I believe the media is wrong in their analysis of why they're not doing that well in the polls. The truth is that 35 years of Thatcherite greed and individualism has eroded our ability to act as a society and make choices based on what's best for everyone rather than just ourselves. People don't like tax avoidance and zero hours contracts but they do like the convenience and cheap prices that these companies offer. They, erroneously in my opinion, believe there is a heavy price to be paid for being 'fair'. Labour need to show how that isn't necessarily the case. It's a tall order, especially how you help those who can't afford housing with lower prices and rents, without hurting those who are already on the housing ladder, but if Labour can resolve these conundrums, they would probably attract wider support.

I'm also in the position where if I want people to buy my books, I have to promote Amazon as it's by far the easiest (and usually cheapest) place for people to get them. There's a whole other argument about Amazon's domination of publishing, but I make little enough money out of a lot of work as it is. Waterstones don't want to know unless you can shift units JK Rowling style, and there are precious few other games in town.

DonutHingeParty wrote:It's Christmas time,
There's no need to pay your tax
At Christmas time
We get richer off disabled people's backs.
And in our world of plenty
We shouldn't have to pay our way
Put the burden on the poor at Christmas time!

So say a prayer,
A prayer for those in SW1
At Christmas time, my house has only risen by 12.1 (percent)
There's a world outside the M25
But its full of dragons and ghosts
Do they know how expensive garages are in London?

Rinse the poor!
Let us off without paying our tax!

Rinse the poor!
Let us off without paying our tax!

Here's to us in our three storey converted mews
Here's to them in their tenements and second hand shoes
Do they know how much cocaine costs today?

Rinse the poor!
Let us off without paying our tax!

[Repeat to Fade]

adam wrote:

RobertSnozers wrote:Yet in Daily Telegraph land...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... n-tax.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Singer Myleene Klass ‘wipes the floor’ with Ed Miliband over mansion tax
Singer Myleene Klass went 'full Paxman' on the Labour leader during a TV debate in a stunning annihilation of his mansion tax policies

Andrew Sparrow's comment on the guardian daily politics

On Twitter this morning there are claims Myleene Klass demolished Ed Miliband on the subject of the mansion tax. Quite why is a mystery. Having watched the exchange, she just sounded like a shouty celeb not engaging very well with Miliband’s argument. If this counts as a political win, God help us all

RobertSnozers wrote:

adam wrote:
Andrew Sparrow's comment on the guardian daily politics

On Twitter this morning there are claims Myleene Klass demolished Ed Miliband on the subject of the mansion tax. Quite why is a mystery. Having watched the exchange, she just sounded like a shouty celeb not engaging very well with Miliband’s argument. If this counts as a political win, God help us all

And that's what stands for political debate in the UK in 2014. God help us all.

Tish wrote:

pk1 wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-n ... ge-4646673

Myleene Klass is worth £11 million!!!!

My entire knowledge of her is that she was once in an X-Factor style pop band about 15 years ago (which is no long term money spinner if you don't write the songs). Then she presented CD:UK for a few months in its dying, post Ant & Dec days. I thought she was one of those D List celebs who scrapes by from getting married every couple of years and selling the pics to OK magazine. What on earth has she been doing in the past few years to amass such a fortune?

OneButtonMonkey wrote:It’s with a heavy heart that we should all turn away from speeches about trivialities like immigration and instead focus on some profound and critical news of genuinely earthshattering import to us all. After all, many of the regulars here are deeply concerned about social justice, about fairness and about how we can, together, create the kind of society that acts as a beacon for justice and dignity to the world. And that’s why I’m sure everyone will be as distraught as me at the clarion call for decency emitted by polical philosopher and marvel of the age Mylene Klass. Only her wise words can save us all from ruin.

Poor Mylene has generously and benevolently taken time out of her busy schedule hawking mince pies for high street shops and smiling vacuously on daytime TV interviews that are so shallow they’d make graphene blush in order to issue an urgent and crucial warning about the dangers of a Labour government and its plan to introduce a mansion tax. How terrible it is that the evil Ed Miliband is suggesting levying a mansion tax on such worthy, leading lights as unassuming, millionaire warblesmith Mylene Klass. It’s not her fault she lives a pampered life of the kind of luxury that only lots and lots of money can buy – and it’s horrible that a politician has mistakenly said that people with more money might be able to afford to pay more money in return from the loads of money they have – that’s not how maths works, is it? That's communism! So thank heavens that we have people like her to aspire to and listen to over matters of taxation.

Mylene’s thesis – to call it any less would be a grave insult to the depth of her argument - has two vital prongs:

1) Poor millionaires in their big homes that they bought with their six- and seven-figure salaries can’t possibly afford to pay any tax on things because, like, they can’t. And she’s right, isn’t she? I mean, it’s not like millionaire pop stars simply hire a number of accountants to stick as much cash as they can offshore to avoid tax while they look the other way, is it? Being paid lots of money for fat fuck all is a full time job and it’s people who don’t have a job that we should be taxing, obviously. And all those apologies they have to mouth their way through when they’re found out really get in the way of the time you need to produce even more valuable cultural artefacts like adverts and interviews about dieting tips. And it’s not like, when they’re not contributing to the advertising pressure to overspend at Christmas that is part of the reason why debt spirals out of control each year, they could, I don’t know, realise some of their enormous assets to pay their taxes if it turned out they couldn’t afford them? These houses don’t pay for themselves, do they? It would be unfair to expect those who earn the most to live within their means because of something or other to do with envy. It’s everyone else who must budget on pennies when they’re not walking five miles to a food bank.

2) The mansion tax won’t raise any money anyway, says Mylene. And she’s clearly right about this, too, and is in no way directly contradicting the lie about not being able to afford it by immediately saying it won’t actually amount to much money.


Mylene’s public spirited bleating about having to pay some tax in return for living in incredibly expensive houses bought with pots and pots of barely-taxed cash has opened my eyes to the injustice of expecting those with most to pay stuff to the place where they live and to the people that buy their witless, ear-curdling product. I mean, it isn’t the avoidance of tax by corporations and millionaire celebrities that has created our problems. It’s the selfish refusal to be able to do things by disabled people that has really ruined our country. When I look at the problems we face, thanks to Mylene, I now realise it’s malnourished children in families that self-centredly can’t afford both food and heating who can afford to pay more. If we should be taxing anyone more, it’s those with no money – or food banks – not well-to-do celebrities like Mylene, who are the only people with the sense to see through our social problems and unselfishly point out how the richest already give us the most just by existing. We should give them more money and demand nothing in return, shouldn’t we? It’s people with no shoes living in flats that have an extra room that are bankrupting us all. It wasn’t banks and politicians that destroyed this country – it was poor people breathing air and drinking water as if everyone should be allowed to do that without paying tax for it.

How would we survive without celebrities to make sense of our lives, eh? The mind boggles.

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Seats could be left vacant if more Tory MPs defect to Ukip before election
William Hague says it will be for parliament to decide whether byelection is necessary in event of further defections
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... e-election

How late could a sitting MP leave it to jump ship ....? Wouldn't there have to be a cut off point to give sufficient time before the election for another candidate to be found for their deserted party?

Here’s why our NHS needs a mansion tax. It’s Pure and Simple.