The "reduced majority" thing is such basic psephological illiteracy. Turnouts almost always drop on the GE level in byelections (even fiercely contested ones) so the only thing that really counts is vote share. Not surprisingly, the BBC seems to have trouble with this rather simple concept as wellRogerOThornhill wrote:Morning all.
Oh dear.
Before
After
You could see that coming...
HindleA wrote:Corbyn -negligible effect either way,not contentious surely ?I am with Paul Mason on this.I must say,most of the "journalists" coverage had been appalling,"Northerners can think for themselves" earthshatteringly inconvenient for the preferred narrative.
He did endorse Liz Kendall for the leadership - but that appears more to be (as with other prominent local government figures who did so) her enthusiasm for the "devolution agenda" rather than his sharing her ideolgical position within Labour. If he is anything, its Blue Labour (and I mean that in its proper sense - not the widespread, but incorrect, shorthand for "Blairite" that too many now employ) He also said nice things about Jez, despite admitting they had differences.ephemerid wrote:John McTernan, in a specious article in the Telegraph entitled "Winning the Oldham by-election isn't a triumph for Corbyn. It's the minimum", has opined that the formula for a Labour win is "a Blairite candidate, a Blairite speech on security in the Commons (I assume he means Benn's) and total censorship of the leader".
I thought Jim McMahon won because he is a popular local politician, not because he's a Blairite (is he a Blairite?).
HindleA wrote:On the other hand,UKIP have a point about postal votes,I did wonder why their is only one candidate on the ballot,with the "x" already placed,personally delivered with a mini bus ferrying people to the postbox,I just thought they were being helpful,silly me.
He's been involved with the negotiations I think, so knows whereof he speaks.This is a truly overwhelming thing. For a local lad to represent the town he loves in Westminster is a big, big issue. I’m very clear; I am sick to death of what the Tories are doing to towns like Oldham. The whole Northern Powerhouse rhetoric is nothing more than a write-off of the north to create a poorhouse, and I’m sick of it. I think it’s about time that we show the Tories the people have had enough.
The 35-year-old local council leader and, until yesterday, probable elected mayor of the new Manchester regional authority, is one of a group of local politicians to do well from George Osborne’s “northern powerhouse”.
McMahon stands alongside such “Osbornistas” as Manchester’s Sir Richard Leese, Wigan’s Peter Smith and Sean Anstee of Trafford.
Multiple reports by serious journalists, that's it.What does the Oldham result really tells us Jeremy Corbyn's leadership? A Q&A
Almost all the media reporting from Oldham suggested that Labour was facing a real challenge from Ukip, partly because some traditional supporters had doubts about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Yet Labour won handsomely. Is that because the journalists were all just biased and wrong, as the Corbyn camp suggests? (See 10.26am.) Or were there other factors at play?
Here’s a Q&A that may untangle some of these issues.
Q: All this stuff about Corbyn being unpopular - did the journalists just get it wrong, or make it up?
No. Sometimes journalists do distort things to fit a political agenda but over the last few weeks there have been multiple reports from serious, reputable journalists who have either witnessed first-hand Oldham Labour-leaning voters criticising Corbyn, or reported Labour figures echoing these concerns. For example, there was Bagehot in the Economist, this report in the Daily Telegraph, Rafael Behr in the Guardian, George Eaton in the New Statesman and Helen Pidd in the Guardian.
I did not arrive in Oldham until yesterday afternoon but I was curious about this and I spent about an hour and a half talking to people in the Spindles shopping centre and I encountered the same phenomenon too. For example, Norman Davies, a retired Royal Mail worker, told me.
I’m generally a Labour man but unfortunately I won’t vote for them this time, not while they’ve got this idiot at the helm, this guy who would cut our defence, no way ... I don’t like him at all. He’s doing more harm than good for this country. He’s a no, no for them.
If Labour really thought Corbyn was an asset here, he would have played a part in the campaign. But, apart from one visit early on, he stayed away, and he did not feature much on Labour campaign leaflets either.
Q: So, if Corbyn really is unpopular with some voters, why didn’t that make any difference?
I can think of think of three reasons.
1) Corbyn’s leadership never became an issue. Ukip tried to make it the issue of the campaign but they failed to persuade the electorate that this was what the contest was about. Opposition parties like Ukip win byelections by identifying a grievance and invited voters to use the poll to express their feelings about this. People use byelections to rhetorically kick the prime minister. But they don’t use them to get involved in opposition leadership feuds.
2) But the identify of the local candidate was an issue - and Labour’s was excellent.
3) Corbyn may alienate some voters, but he attracts others too. I discovered this in my short spell in the shopping centre. For example, Nigel Jones, a former publican, told me:
I’ve been a card carrying Labour supporter for 33 years and I’m quite leftwing, so Corbyn is my ideal leader in a way.
And a district nurse who did not want to give her name told me.
[Corbyn’s] interesting, in a good way. You feel that he answers things. He does not talk like other politicians. They never answer anything.
The Corbyn effect may help to explain why the Greens did so badly. At the general election they got 839 votes (1.9%). Last night they got just 249, and their share of the vote was 0.9%.
Q: Are there any other factors that made a difference?
There weren’t any polls carried out in Oldham (because political polling is rather out of favour at the moment, given what happened at the general election). If there had been polling showing Labour clearly ahead, journalists would have recalibrated their expectations.
And Labour may have chosen to downplay expectations, on the grounds that it is much easier to get activists to campaign if they think there is a risk of their party losing. This happened in the Glenrothes byelection in 2008 and Oldham is similar. In Glenrothes the SNP thought they had a real chance of taking this safe Labour seat, but on the night Labour held on with a majority of almost 7,000, which was much larger than the pundits expected.
Q: So what lessons should we learn from Oldham?
The usual ones, that in byelections candidates matter, and that being organised matters even more. Nigel Farage’s complaints about postal voting are a tribute to the efficiency of the Labour machine. In addition we can add, that the opposition can win byelections even when it is divided at Westminster so long as the fundamentals on the ground are sound.
Q: And are there any lessons we shouldn’t take away from Oldham?
Yes. This contest was neither an endorsement or a rejection of Corbyn’s politics because his leadership never became the issue. At a general election his leadership and his policies will be deciding factors, and Oldham tells us next to nothing about what impact they might have.
And, although it was spectacularly bad for Ukip, it would be too soon to conclude that the Ukip threat to Labour in working class areas in the north is fading. Stephen Bush was very good on this at the Staggers yesterday. Glenrothes was a serious setback for the SNP. But seven years later it too the seat - and most of the rest of Scotland too.
ohsocynical wrote:Off Topic.
Nightmare !!!
Mr Ohso has to have a low fibre diet for the next few weeks. Just checked out some sites to get an idea of what to give him.
He can eat lots of sugary stuff including caramel and chocolate...But we control his tendency for high blood sugar levels, with a low to no sugar diet!
No Sugar substitutes.
Fruit juice only. Not smoothies. No pips seeds or skin. Tinned peaches, apricots, are good.
He's been eating his vegetables because he's having to lose weight. But most vegetables are high in fibre so they're off the list apart from pureed carrots and cauliflour, and potatoes !!!
He can have cheese, cream, butter, cottage cheese, plain yogurts, creme-Freche etc, but there goes his waistline.
He can eat all meats ... And there goes my food budget!!!!
Oh what fun.
That's helpful to know. He can also have rice [but not brown] and pasta, but no spices and no onions, or garlic. Only dried seasoning. It's going to be limiting.PorFavor wrote:ohsocynical wrote:Off Topic.
Nightmare !!!
Mr Ohso has to have a low fibre diet for the next few weeks. Just checked out some sites to get an idea of what to give him.
He can eat lots of sugary stuff including caramel and chocolate...But we control his tendency for high blood sugar levels, with a low to no sugar diet!
No Sugar substitutes.
Fruit juice only. Not smoothies. No pips seeds or skin. Tinned peaches, apricots, are good.
He's been eating his vegetables because he's having to lose weight. But most vegetables are high in fibre so they're off the list apart from pureed carrots and cauliflour, and potatoes !!!
He can have cheese, cream, butter, cottage cheese, plain yogurts, creme-Freche etc, but there goes his waistline.
He can eat all meats ... And there goes my food budget!!!!
Oh what fun.
Much to my surprise, tofu (low in fibre) is very palatable. It's good for absorbing flavours of sauces and the like. The best brand I've come across (consistency-wise) is by Cauldron Foods (you can get it in a lot of supermarkets).
Other brands are available . . .
And some are.AnatolyKasparov wrote:I think it is obvious that many voters in Oldham aren't wildly enthusiastic about Corbyn,
Mo Farah says so, and he is an official National Treasure.gilsey wrote:Good luck Ohso, best wishes to Mr.
Is Quorn any good?
I worked on its development: very high in fibre.gilsey wrote:Good luck Ohso, best wishes to Mr.
Is Quorn any good?
And it is at least possible some of these "former Labour voters" quoted didn't vote for us in May either - and possibly for rather longer than that?RobertSnozers wrote:There's a question no-one is asking, and which may be uncomfortable: are fewer potential Labour voters put off by Corbyn than were put off by Miliband? (and by extension, were some of those who claim to be put off by Corbyn also put off by Miliband?)gilsey wrote:I know some of you won't have anything to do with AS at the G, and this is certainly not going to change your mind. I'm posting it here because of the spectacular wrongness of his first conclusion - did the journalists make it up? No. Really?He finds some people turned off by Corbyn, then later admits he found some that like him. This is reporting?What does the Oldham result really tells us Jeremy Corbyn's leadership? A Q&A
Almost all the media reporting from Oldham suggested that Labour was facing a real challenge from Ukip, partly because some traditional supporters had doubts about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Yet Labour won handsomely. Is that because the journalists were all just biased and wrong, as the Corbyn camp suggests? (See 10.26am.) Or were there other factors at play?
Here’s a Q&A that may untangle some of these issues.
Q: All this stuff about Corbyn being unpopular - did the journalists just get it wrong, or make it up?
No. Sometimes journalists do distort things to fit a political agenda but over the last few weeks there have been multiple reports from serious, reputable journalists who have either witnessed first-hand Oldham Labour-leaning voters criticising Corbyn, or reported Labour figures echoing these concerns. For example, there was Bagehot in the Economist, this report in the Daily Telegraph, Rafael Behr in the Guardian, George Eaton in the New Statesman and Helen Pidd in the Guardian.
I did not arrive in Oldham until yesterday afternoon but I was curious about this and I spent about an hour and a half talking to people in the Spindles shopping centre and I encountered the same phenomenon too. For example, Norman Davies, a retired Royal Mail worker, told me.
I’m generally a Labour man but unfortunately I won’t vote for them this time, not while they’ve got this idiot at the helm, this guy who would cut our defence, no way ... I don’t like him at all. He’s doing more harm than good for this country. He’s a no, no for them.
Some, perhaps a lot, of simple Japanese recipes are very low in fibre, especially those based around rice. Can he have soy sauce?PorFavor wrote:ohsocynical wrote:Off Topic.
Nightmare !!!
Mr Ohso has to have a low fibre diet for the next few weeks. Just checked out some sites to get an idea of what to give him.
He can eat lots of sugary stuff including caramel and chocolate...But we control his tendency for high blood sugar levels, with a low to no sugar diet!
No Sugar substitutes.
Fruit juice only. Not smoothies. No pips seeds or skin. Tinned peaches, apricots, are good.
He's been eating his vegetables because he's having to lose weight. But most vegetables are high in fibre so they're off the list apart from pureed carrots and cauliflour, and potatoes !!!
He can have cheese, cream, butter, cottage cheese, plain yogurts, creme-Freche etc, but there goes his waistline.
He can eat all meats ... And there goes my food budget!!!!
Oh what fun.
Much to my surprise, tofu (low in fibre) is very palatable. It's good for absorbing flavours of sauces and the like. The best brand I've come across (consistency-wise) is by Cauldron Foods (you can get it in a lot of supermarkets).
Other brands are available . . .
It's quite weird. All the foodstuffs you are supposed to eat to keep your bowel healthy, are not allowed when you've had six or more inches removed...Hopefully his body will adjust and once the join is healed he'll be able to go back to a healthy diet, but there may be some foods he'll never be able to eat again.TheGrimSqueaker wrote:Mo Farah says so, and he is an official National Treasure.gilsey wrote:Good luck Ohso, best wishes to Mr.
Is Quorn any good?
Good luck with all of that Ohso.
Kate Godfrey (and I say this slightly hesitantly, but still) gives the impression of being a bit of a fantasist, tbh.RobertSnozers wrote:What happened with that 'anti-Corbyn' candidate who was 'barred' from standing? Presumably if McMahon was such an 'Osbornista/Blairite' then 'ver unions' would have 'barred' him as well?AnatolyKasparov wrote:(McMahon) did endorse Liz Kendall for the leadership - but that appears more to be (as with other prominent local government figures who did so) her enthusiasm for the "devolution agenda" rather than his sharing her ideolgical position within Labour. If he is anything, its Blue Labour (and I mean that in its proper sense - not the widespread, but incorrect, shorthand for "Blairite" that too many now employ) He also said nice things about Jez, despite admitting they had differences.
And both Progress and Momentum went to campaign for him, with enthusiasm. He fundamentally seems to be a unifier not a divider, we need more of them
(the very opposite of McTernan's delusional, sectarian bile in fact)
Or was the whole story just MSM BS?
RobertSnozers wrote:Bollock's to thatHindleA wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-y ... apostrophe
At last, a book that tells you exactly where to stick your apostrophe
(Sweary)
I'm sure he does it for free, simply because he believes in it so much.RobertSnozers wrote:Fixed that for youTheGrimSqueaker wrote:Mo Farah is paid to say so, and he is an official National Treasure.gilsey wrote:Good luck Ohso, best wishes to Mr.
Is Quorn any good?
Good luck with all of that Ohso.
Yes. Thank you. I'd love to see them. As long as they don't involve raw fish...Couldn't handle that for love nor money.Maeght wrote:Some, perhaps a lot, of simple Japanese recipes are very low in fibre, especially those based around rice. Can he have soy sauce?PorFavor wrote:ohsocynical wrote:Off Topic.
Nightmare !!!
Mr Ohso has to have a low fibre diet for the next few weeks. Just checked out some sites to get an idea of what to give him.
He can eat lots of sugary stuff including caramel and chocolate...But we control his tendency for high blood sugar levels, with a low to no sugar diet!
No Sugar substitutes.
Fruit juice only. Not smoothies. No pips seeds or skin. Tinned peaches, apricots, are good.
He's been eating his vegetables because he's having to lose weight. But most vegetables are high in fibre so they're off the list apart from pureed carrots and cauliflour, and potatoes !!!
He can have cheese, cream, butter, cottage cheese, plain yogurts, creme-Freche etc, but there goes his waistline.
He can eat all meats ... And there goes my food budget!!!!
Oh what fun.
Much to my surprise, tofu (low in fibre) is very palatable. It's good for absorbing flavours of sauces and the like. The best brand I've come across (consistency-wise) is by Cauldron Foods (you can get it in a lot of supermarkets).
Other brands are available . . .
I can copy a few recipes for you if it might help.
No word of who the MPs are, though.Met Police investigate expenses of two MPs (BBC News website)
The cases were referred to the police earlier this year by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority watchdog, which oversees expenses.
My dad had a bowel op for Crohns and he's still poorly with it, but even he's able to eat mushy peas again now, so hopefully Mr OhSo won't be on the mashed potato for too long.ohsocynical wrote:Yes. Thank you. I'd love to see them. As long as they don't involve raw fish...Couldn't handle that for love nor money.Maeght wrote:Some, perhaps a lot, of simple Japanese recipes are very low in fibre, especially those based around rice. Can he have soy sauce?PorFavor wrote:
Much to my surprise, tofu (low in fibre) is very palatable. It's good for absorbing flavours of sauces and the like. The best brand I've come across (consistency-wise) is by Cauldron Foods (you can get it in a lot of supermarkets).
Other brands are available . . .
I can copy a few recipes for you if it might help.
Soy sauce is allowed. But not stir fry. The only veg he's allowed - carrots and cauliflower - must be boiled to the point of mush then pureed.
Labour people repeating this uncritically was genuinely one of the most depressing moments of the whole week.HindleA wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/media/greens ... are_btn_tw
Stella Creasy crushes story about protest outside her house
Roy Greenslade
David Hencke Retweeted
Mark Conrad @markconradhack 2h2 hours ago
He's nailed it again: @davidhencke gets behind the headlines and reveals why Labour really held Oldham convincingly. https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2015/ ... challenge/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …
PorFavor wrote:RobertSnozers wrote:Bollock's to thatHindleA wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-y ... apostrophe
At last, a book that tells you exactly where to stick your apostrophe
(Sweary)
You're comment has been noted.
Rob Merrick @Rob_Merrick 2h2 hours ago
Not a great day for David Cameron in The Sun - accused of a 'dodgy dossier' (p1)....and dressed up as a Brussels sprout (p2)
Hugh Harvey @DrHughHarvey 33m33 minutes ago
It is time for an explicit public apology and explanation from the Health Secretary. Patients deserve the truth.
shoutyboy
3h ago
135 136
Aaagghh! Another split. The end is nigh! Oh hang on a sec. Back in the real world, the one of actual votes, Labour wins a stonking victory!! Still can't spin that so back to the splits! Splits I tell you!
I'm not sure about onion powder, I'm going to see if I can talk to a dietician before he comes home. I know they've said no garlic. It's something to do with whats in the food affecting the level of fluid which is normally extracted as food goes through you. With less bowel it's harder to control. And also to give it as little work to do as possible while it heals.PorFavor wrote:@ohsocynical
Don't know if his site is of any use but it might be. It's all I could find (after a quick look). It might at least give you some ideas.
http://kelliesfoodtoglow.com/nutrition- ... delicious/
Edited to add
I noticed that onion (verboten) is included in one of the recipes. Is dried onion powder allowed?
Is he dressed as a Brussel sprout because they make you fart a lot?rebeccariots2 wrote:Rob Merrick @Rob_Merrick 2h2 hours ago
Not a great day for David Cameron in The Sun - accused of a 'dodgy dossier' (p1)....and dressed up as a Brussels sprout (p2)
HindleA wrote:Green crap
