Tuesday 13th January 2015

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:00 pm

TechnicalEphemera wrote:Time for an anti green comment, for which I apologise but this needs to be said.

Prior to the autumn statement I could understand the red Tories line and they are all the same. I didn't agree with it, but I understood it.

Then the autumn statement turned up, the Tory manifesto is utterly terrifying. If they get elected this country will change utterly. We will become a pound shop America, all of the poverty and none of the social mobility. Our welfare state will be over, people will die, the NHS will end. None of us will have seen anything like it.

The chasm between Labour and the Conservatives is huge. Don't believe me? Consider the IFS.

From Sparrow today.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has written an article for the Times (paywall) setting out the different approaches the Conservatives and Labour have to public spending. They are quite distinct, he says, and voters face “real, meaty political choices” at the election.

Labour has said that it wants to achieve balance or surplus on the present budget. That is, it would be happy to keep borrowing to pay for investment spending — at present levels of investment, spending that would allow it to borrow about £25 billion a year.

To achieve that, it would need to find spending cuts, or tax increases, of about £7 billion after 2015-16, perhaps not easy after so many years of austerity. And don’t forget that both parties are signed up to a tough spending round in 2015-16 itself. Yet cuts of this magnitude over the rest of the parliament would be modest relative to what has been delivered thus far.

The Conservative plans are rather different. They want to achieve a surplus on the overall budget and so would not be happy to borrow to invest. That means that they would need to find spending cuts of about £33 billion after 2015-16. Lest there be any doubt, there is a big difference between £7 billion of cuts and £33 billion of cuts.
Note also Labour's cuts are likely to be to a large degree offset by tax rises.

Now if people like Lucas are lying about this, which she seems to be, then I have to re-calibrate my view of her party.

I understand they want to get elected in a couple of Labour seats, good luck - I used to hope she won now I am not sure.

However by attacking Labour and claiming they are the same as the Tories they are doing Cameron's work for him. They are becoming Tory enablers and probably the biggest threat to this country since the Tory party.

It may be Bennett's strategy to displace Labour as the party of the left whilst inflicting two decades of Tory government on us (her Australian playbook), but it would be an utter disaster for the country. Not least because Cameron now wants massive state surveillance and to abolish our human rights (hello 1933).

So sure fight your target seats, and campaign for left wing values, but the deliberate targeting of the Labour vote by misrepresenting Labour policy has to stop, unless of course a Tory government is their desired outcome.

Tubby's challenging her.

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:05 pm

gilsey wrote: Possibly the spending cuts have been delivered as planned, but there's a black hole where the tax receipts should be. As many predicted.

Did someone mention receipts? OK, for 2014/5 this is the picture:

June 2010 budget..............£700.1bn
Autumn Statement 2014.....£645.8bn

£55bn lower...and that's only one year.

For 2015/6 it's even worse

June 2010 budget..............£737bn
Autumn Statement 2014.....£670bn

£67bn lower.

We're not reaching £737bn until 2017/8 so effectively we've lost two years increases.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:16 pm

Toby Latimer wrote:
gilsey wrote:
ohsocynical wrote: He barely makes sense to me
Possibly the spending cuts have been delivered as planned, but there's a black hole where the tax receipts should be. As many predicted.

Did anyone else see Osborne on news24 this morning, asked about inflation and the oil price? He did his usual hardworkingfamilies yada yada longtermecnomicplan yada yada, I wasn't really paying attention. Then the journalist asked him about the possibility of a fuel duty increase. I am almost certain Gideon repeated word for word his previous lines, apparently having completely failed to register the question.
Pretty sure it wasn't deliberate because the journalist asked again and he answered it then.

Is he going to make it to May? And does anyone take him seriously as a future PM?

I had to seek it out, what a plonker - word for word same answer for the first two questions http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30795668" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm no expert, but if he has a problem [it certainly looked that way the other week and it's a big one from what I could see] his brain is already starting to fry. Stupid man.

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:19 pm

More economics.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... eece-spain

“It’s incredible,” Piketty said. “It’s an act of historical amnesia to tell southern European countries that they have to pay all their debt, down to the last cent, with zero inflation.”

The economist believes that European countries have tried to get rid of their deficits too quickly. The result is that “their citizens have suffered the consequences in the shape of austerity policies. It’s good to reduce deficits, but at a rate that’s commensurate with growth and economic recovery, but here growth has been killed off.”

TheGrimSqueaker · Post by **TheGrimSqueaker** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:20 pm

ohsocynical wrote:
TechnicalEphemera wrote:Time for an anti green comment, for which I apologise but this needs to be said.

Prior to the autumn statement I could understand the red Tories line and they are all the same. I didn't agree with it, but I understood it.

Then the autumn statement turned up, the Tory manifesto is utterly terrifying. If they get elected this country will change utterly. We will become a pound shop America, all of the poverty and none of the social mobility. Our welfare state will be over, people will die, the NHS will end. None of us will have seen anything like it.

The chasm between Labour and the Conservatives is huge. Don't believe me? Consider the IFS.

From Sparrow today.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has written an article for the Times (paywall) setting out the different approaches the Conservatives and Labour have to public spending. They are quite distinct, he says, and voters face “real, meaty political choices” at the election.

Labour has said that it wants to achieve balance or surplus on the present budget. That is, it would be happy to keep borrowing to pay for investment spending — at present levels of investment, spending that would allow it to borrow about £25 billion a year.

To achieve that, it would need to find spending cuts, or tax increases, of about £7 billion after 2015-16, perhaps not easy after so many years of austerity. And don’t forget that both parties are signed up to a tough spending round in 2015-16 itself. Yet cuts of this magnitude over the rest of the parliament would be modest relative to what has been delivered thus far.

The Conservative plans are rather different. They want to achieve a surplus on the overall budget and so would not be happy to borrow to invest. That means that they would need to find spending cuts of about £33 billion after 2015-16. Lest there be any doubt, there is a big difference between £7 billion of cuts and £33 billion of cuts.
Note also Labour's cuts are likely to be to a large degree offset by tax rises.

Now if people like Lucas are lying about this, which she seems to be, then I have to re-calibrate my view of her party.

I understand they want to get elected in a couple of Labour seats, good luck - I used to hope she won now I am not sure.

However by attacking Labour and claiming they are the same as the Tories they are doing Cameron's work for him. They are becoming Tory enablers and probably the biggest threat to this country since the Tory party.

It may be Bennett's strategy to displace Labour as the party of the left whilst inflicting two decades of Tory government on us (her Australian playbook), but it would be an utter disaster for the country. Not least because Cameron now wants massive state surveillance and to abolish our human rights (hello 1933).

So sure fight your target seats, and campaign for left wing values, but the deliberate targeting of the Labour vote by misrepresenting Labour policy has to stop, unless of course a Tory government is their desired outcome.
Tubby's challenging her.

I wish him luck with that. Sadly not all Greens are as nuanced as Tizme.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:42 pm

Bugger me. Some Twitter posters are wringing their hands over that stupid economy vote and saying Labour is going to have to make the same cuts, and when is Ed going to let us know what he's going to do....

Stuffs knuckles in mouth to stifle screams......

danesclose · Post by **danesclose** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 9:48 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:
GENERAL ELECTION PREDICTIONS 64: BIRMINGHAM
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2015/01/1 ... um=twitter
Seats: 9
Current Political Makeup: Lab 8, LibDem 1
Predicted Political Makeup after May 7: Lab 9
He's predicting Labour to take Birmingham Yardley from the Lib Dems.

GENERAL ELECTION PREDICTIONS 65: WEST MIDLANDS A-S
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2015/01/1 ... um=twitter
Seats: 11
Current Political Makeup: Con 6, Lab 4, LibDem 1
Predicted Political Makeup after May 7: Con 6, Lab 5
Predicting Labour gain in Halesowen & Rowley Regis from Conservatives. And then Conservatives gain Solihull from Lorely Burt / Lib Dems.

Due to there being sod all on TV tonight & because I'm the sad sort, I've totalled up the totals from Iain Dale's predictions.
After 550 seats the totals are as follows:

Con 288 (2010) 265 (2015) -23
Lab 187 232 +35
LD 51 25 -26
UKIP 2 4 +2
Green 1 0 -1
SNP 6 19 +13
PC 3 3 0
Respect 1 1 0
Speaker 1 1 0

TheGrimSqueaker · Post by **TheGrimSqueaker** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:14 pm

ohsocynical wrote:Bugger me. Some Twitter posters are wringing their hands over that stupid economy vote and saying Labour is going to have to make the same cuts, and when is Ed going to let us know what he's going to do....

Stuffs knuckles in mouth to stifle screams......

I've just had tremendous fun with one, made him jump through hoops for ages. I know it is wicked, but .....

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:18 pm

Above, Toby et al on the Osborne thing....

I know he is on some stupid diet, the sort of regime a dietitian would be struck off for recommending, but I do wonder. His judgement seems rather off and his attention span lacking. If he is this fried now I tend to agree, he will have some sort of breakdown before May.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:29 pm

Cheer yourselves up with this. Clearly some of the public are far more intelligent than Cameron could ever imagine them to be ....

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB · 32m 32 minutes ago
New 20k sample @LordAshcroft poll finds LAB's Andy Burnham more trusted to tell truth on NHS than DC or J Hunt
http://bit.ly/1C3sCJU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:37 pm

ohsocynical wrote:Bugger me. Some Twitter posters are wringing their hands over that stupid economy vote and saying Labour is going to have to make the same cuts, and when is Ed going to let us know what he's going to do....

Stuffs knuckles in mouth to stifle screams......

All you can do is point them at the IFS figures, the rest is up to them.

TheGrimSqueaker · Post by **TheGrimSqueaker** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:40 pm

TechnicalEphemera wrote:
ohsocynical wrote:Bugger me. Some Twitter posters are wringing their hands over that stupid economy vote and saying Labour is going to have to make the same cuts, and when is Ed going to let us know what he's going to do....

Stuffs knuckles in mouth to stifle screams......

All you can do is point them at the IFS figures, the rest is up to them.

That means them looking at "facts" TE, just confuses them. If you give them facts they just say you are spinning, as usual. *yawn*

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:42 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:Cheer yourselves up with this. Clearly some of the public are far more intelligent than Cameron could ever imagine them to be ....

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB · 32m 32 minutes ago
New 20k sample @LordAshcroft poll finds LAB's Andy Burnham more trusted to tell truth on NHS than DC or J Hunt
http://bit.ly/1C3sCJU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It has got remarkably worse since then, but most polls haven't shifted.

Tubby Isaacs · Post by **Tubby Isaacs** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:42 pm

Lucas replied once, sent probably too many back.

Can you all tweet her too, with link to Times?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business ... 21340.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Make very clear £7bn figure.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:46 pm

: DavidCameronWanker BreachofPublicOrder.jpg (48.99 KiB) Viewed 6483 times

Ian Puddick
‏@ianpuddick
#MetPolice have Confirmed that this Poster re #DavidCameron is breach of #PublicOrderAct

To complete the enjoyment from this graphic - do please skip over to Natalie Rowe on Twitter and see her response of approx 4 hours ago. Not posting here - just in case. https://twitter.com/RealNatalieRowe/with_replies

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 10:55 pm

Mary Creagh MP retweeted
Daily Mirror ‏@DailyMirror 22m22 minutes ago
NHS patient wakes up in hospital CUPBOARD as desperate medics struggle for space http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nh ... up-4974316" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Tubby Isaacs · Post by **Tubby Isaacs** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:06 pm

SNP also claiming Labour "backed Tory cuts" too.

Had another interesting exchange where SNPer said Labour cuts would mean NHS in Scotland wouldn't be safe.

Thought v instructive that he didn't think of tax rises. Left wing SNP!

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:09 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote:SNP also claiming Labour "backed Tory cuts" too.

Had another interesting exchange where SNPer said Labour cuts would mean NHS in Scotland wouldn't be safe.

Thought v instructive that he didn't think of tax rises. Left wing SNP!

I expect the SNP to lie, they want a Tory government as it aligns with their only purpose in life.

Independence for Scotland and to hell with the people of Scotland.

Tubby Isaacs · Post by **Tubby Isaacs** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:11 pm

Oh well done this one!

Cathy Newman ‏@cathynewman 4h4 hours ago
Labour MP @ShabanaMahmood tells me a future Labour government would have to raise taxes further than hitherto admitted to cut deficit...

Can't MPs know their own figures? Why is £7bn cuts impossible?

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:13 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote:Oh well done this one!

Cathy Newman ‏@cathynewman 4h4 hours ago
Labour MP @ShabanaMahmood tells me a future Labour government would have to raise taxes further than hitherto admitted to cut deficit...
Can't MPs know their own figures? Why is £7bn cuts impossible?

Yes, everybody knows this. The IFS has said it and it applies equally to the Tories.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:25 pm

GENERAL ELECTION PREDICTIONS 66: WEST MIDLANDS T-Z
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2015/01/1 ... um=twitter
Seats: 8
Current Political Makeup: Lab 7, Con 1
Predicted Political Makeup after May 7: Lab 8

I'm getting a bit dizzy from these. Still another gain for Labour.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:29 pm

‏@IainDale
New Blog by me: Can the Scottish Polls Be Right?: I’ve now finished publishing my predictions for Scottish sea... http://bit.ly/1ygGsbz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:39 pm

50 die under secret 999 policy
Terminally ill wait an hour for ambulance after 999 call downgrade by East of England ambulance trust
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/113 ... olicy.html
More than 50 patients have died after an NHS trust introduced a secret policy to downgrade 999 calls and not to send ambulances to terminally ill patients.
Managers at East of England ambulance trust were accused of “the most cruel form of rationing imaginable” after admitting that 8,000 patients had been affected by the changes.
An internal NHS report discloses that 57 patients died after their calls were downgraded following a decision not to send ambulances to the terminally ill and to those who had given instructions not to resuscitate.
It meant that, instead of receiving a response from paramedics in eight minutes, people reporting life-threatening illnesses were given a call back up to 20 minutes later, or had to wait up to an hour for an ambulance.
The policy was in place for two months before staff raised concerns that patients suffering cardiac arrests were being left to die...

Surely there will be more of this kind of downgrading / reprioritising of calls under the changed ambulance targets that were being proposed by NHS England for introduction from this month, which Hunt insisted he hadn't approved, and sparked so much debate.

Hobiejoe · Post by **Hobiejoe** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:42 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:
DavidCameronWanker BreachofPublicOrder.jpg

Ian Puddick
‏@ianpuddick
#MetPolice have Confirmed that this Poster re #DavidCameron is breach of #PublicOrderAct
To complete the enjoyment from this graphic - do please skip over to Natalie Rowe on Twitter and see her response of approx 4 hours ago. Not posting here - just in case. https://twitter.com/RealNatalieRowe/with_replies

I'm just finishing work, so only had a chance to have a quick squint, but I've just seen an argument that I'd dearly love to see presented in court vis-a-vis

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Tue 13 Jan, 2015 11:59 pm

Hobiejoe wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
DavidCameronWanker BreachofPublicOrder.jpg

Ian Puddick
‏@ianpuddick
#MetPolice have Confirmed that this Poster re #DavidCameron is breach of #PublicOrderAct
To complete the enjoyment from this graphic - do please skip over to Natalie Rowe on Twitter and see her response of approx 4 hours ago. Not posting here - just in case. https://twitter.com/RealNatalieRowe/with_replies
I'm just finishing work, so only had a chance to have a quick squint, but I've just seen an argument that I'd dearly love to see presented in court vis-a-vis

Indeed. I'd pay to watch that court case.

TheGrimSqueaker · Post by **TheGrimSqueaker** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 12:13 am

rebeccariots2 wrote:
Hobiejoe wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
DavidCameronWanker BreachofPublicOrder.jpg
To complete the enjoyment from this graphic - do please skip over to Natalie Rowe on Twitter and see her response of approx 4 hours ago. Not posting here - just in case. https://twitter.com/RealNatalieRowe/with_replies
I'm just finishing work, so only had a chance to have a quick squint, but I've just seen an argument that I'd dearly love to see presented in court vis-a-vis
Indeed. I'd pay to watch that court case.

That is a chance not to be sniffed at.

ErnstRemarx · Post by **ErnstRemarx** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 12:18 am

Quick thought about Ed Balls' recent outings against the Tories.

They're important. Very important indeed. We know from tonight's polling that the public see the NHS as unsafe in Tory hands, and it's highly likely that Tory thunder about immigration will always be topped by UKIP - that's their raison d'etre, and why so many votes are shed from the Tories only to end up with UKIP. That leaves the economy as the main big issue for voters - forget Europe and anything else, "it's the economy, stupid", as someone once said. And they're right.

Put a wrecking ball through the Tory bullshit about them being good with the economy - hardly difficult to achieve at present - and the Tories have nothing to campaign on. We've already seen it with the Cameron nonsense about the 'chaos' that would follow a Labour victory. No-one (other than dyed in the wool Tories) is going to be vaguely convinced by that. If the best campaign tactic you can come up with on the economy is "ah! well they'd be even worse than us!" then you're probably dead in the water.

Thoughts?

Hobiejoe · Post by **Hobiejoe** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 12:32 am

TheGrimSqueaker wrote:
rebeccariots2 wrote:
Hobiejoe wrote: I'm just finishing work, so only had a chance to have a quick squint, but I've just seen an argument that I'd dearly love to see presented in court vis-a-vis
Indeed. I'd pay to watch that court case.
That is a chance not to be sniffed at.

Boom-tish!

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 12:36 am

ErnstRemarx wrote:Quick thought about Ed Balls' recent outings against the Tories.

They're important. Very important indeed. We know from tonight's polling that the public see the NHS as unsafe in Tory hands, and it's highly likely that Tory thunder about immigration will always be topped by UKIP - that's their raison d'etre, and why so many votes are shed from the Tories only to end up with UKIP. That leaves the economy as the main big issue for voters - forget Europe and anything else, "it's the economy, stupid", as someone once said. And they're right.

Put a wrecking ball through the Tory bullshit about them being good with the economy - hardly difficult to achieve at present - and the Tories have nothing to campaign on. We've already seen it with the Cameron nonsense about the 'chaos' that would follow a Labour victory. No-one (other than dyed in the wool Tories) is going to be vaguely convinced by that. If the best campaign tactic you can come up with on the economy is "ah! well they'd be even worse than us!" then you're probably dead in the water.

Thoughts?

I reckon it has to be

2010 - Labour say cut the deficit by half by 2015
2010 - Tories say cut the deficit completely by 2015

2015 - Tories say "We've cut the deficit by half...just like we said we would!"

Hobiejoe · Post by **Hobiejoe** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 12:40 am

ErnstRemarx wrote:Quick thought about Ed Balls' recent outings against the Tories.

They're important. Very important indeed. We know from tonight's polling that the public see the NHS as unsafe in Tory hands, and it's highly likely that Tory thunder about immigration will always be topped by UKIP - that's their raison d'etre, and why so many votes are shed from the Tories only to end up with UKIP. That leaves the economy as the main big issue for voters - forget Europe and anything else, "it's the economy, stupid", as someone once said. And they're right.

Put a wrecking ball through the Tory bullshit about them being good with the economy - hardly difficult to achieve at present - and the Tories have nothing to campaign on. We've already seen it with the Cameron nonsense about the 'chaos' that would follow a Labour victory. No-one (other than dyed in the wool Tories) is going to be vaguely convinced by that. If the best campaign tactic you can come up with on the economy is "ah! well they'd be even worse than us!" then you're probably dead in the water.

Thoughts?

I'm worried that a "wrecking ball" speech by Ed Balls is going to need a fair old bit of momentum from the self-same media that did so much to spread the Tory line about Labour crashing the economy. Is there a thought in the party that things are so evidently bad for the general population that the media will simply have to report the truth in enough depth to counter the spin?

ErnstRemarx · Post by **ErnstRemarx** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 12:44 am

Hobiejoe wrote:
ErnstRemarx wrote:Quick thought about Ed Balls' recent outings against the Tories.

They're important. Very important indeed. We know from tonight's polling that the public see the NHS as unsafe in Tory hands, and it's highly likely that Tory thunder about immigration will always be topped by UKIP - that's their raison d'etre, and why so many votes are shed from the Tories only to end up with UKIP. That leaves the economy as the main big issue for voters - forget Europe and anything else, "it's the economy, stupid", as someone once said. And they're right.

Put a wrecking ball through the Tory bullshit about them being good with the economy - hardly difficult to achieve at present - and the Tories have nothing to campaign on. We've already seen it with the Cameron nonsense about the 'chaos' that would follow a Labour victory. No-one (other than dyed in the wool Tories) is going to be vaguely convinced by that. If the best campaign tactic you can come up with on the economy is "ah! well they'd be even worse than us!" then you're probably dead in the water.

Thoughts?
I'm worried that a "wrecking ball" speech by Ed Balls is going to need a fair old bit of momentum from the self-same media that did so much to spread the Tory line about Labour crashing the economy. Is there a thought in the party that things are so evidently bad for the general population that the media will simply have to report the truth in enough depth to counter the spin?

I don't know. I do know that most of the meeja is Tory. I wonder what a world with a UK pluralist left wing meeja would look like?

Ah well, no wories, I'll never have to bother myaelf with that thought again, as it'll never happen.

Hobiejoe · Post by **Hobiejoe** » Wed 14 Jan, 2015 1:05 am

ErnstRemarx wrote:
Hobiejoe wrote:
ErnstRemarx wrote:Quick thought about Ed Balls' recent outings against the Tories.

They're important. Very important indeed. We know from tonight's polling that the public see the NHS as unsafe in Tory hands, and it's highly likely that Tory thunder about immigration will always be topped by UKIP - that's their raison d'etre, and why so many votes are shed from the Tories only to end up with UKIP. That leaves the economy as the main big issue for voters - forget Europe and anything else, "it's the economy, stupid", as someone once said. And they're right.

Put a wrecking ball through the Tory bullshit about them being good with the economy - hardly difficult to achieve at present - and the Tories have nothing to campaign on. We've already seen it with the Cameron nonsense about the 'chaos' that would follow a Labour victory. No-one (other than dyed in the wool Tories) is going to be vaguely convinced by that. If the best campaign tactic you can come up with on the economy is "ah! well they'd be even worse than us!" then you're probably dead in the water.

Thoughts?
I'm worried that a "wrecking ball" speech by Ed Balls is going to need a fair old bit of momentum from the self-same media that did so much to spread the Tory line about Labour crashing the economy. Is there a thought in the party that things are so evidently bad for the general population that the media will simply have to report the truth in enough depth to counter the spin?
I don't know. I do know that most of the meeja is Tory. I wonder what a world with a UK pluralist left wing meeja would look like?

Ah well, no wories, I'll never have to bother myaelf with that thought again, as it'll never happen.

Happily, this 'ere new-fangled social media may ride to the rescue in puncturing the right's balloon by, hot on the heels of Fox New's revelation that Birmingham is a no-go area for non-muslims, by generously sharing news of Farage appearing on, yes, Fox News http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01 ... 1421163145" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Enjoy

....even Hannity looked as if Farage was going over the top.

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