Friday, March 20, 2015
Danny Alexander leads another 'March of the Moderates' - towards oblivion
Just a quick note to let you know I have a new article at the International Business Times about the potential impact of both the real Budget, and of Danny Alexander's unintentionally amusing "alternative Budget". You can read it HERE. (It's also on Yahoo HERE.)
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Good article as always James.
ReplyDeleteI think you might have given the lib dems a touch too much 'credit' though in ascribing to them sufficient influence to completely stop an Osbrowne 'master strategy'. Did they want to limit his room for some half-baked electioneering idiocy? Sure. But in the end they would not have been able to stop Osborne and Cameron if they had really wanted to do it.
It's happened before after all and the usual way Cameron and Osborne do it is just not to tell Clegg or Alexander precisely what they were up to to and then let them find out the hard way.
The most likely explanation for the damp squib budget is fear. The most overtly political budget Osbrowne was in charge of was of course the omnishambles budget. That's what happens when you let Osborne off the leash.
So it will hardly have escaped the coward Cameron's notice that to let Osborne loose again with a hugely political budget would be a truly gigantic risk right now with the election in a few short weeks.
They tried to play it safe. I mean obviously, the massive £30 Billion cuts will come back to haunt the tories and Labour when the likes of the NHS and other public services get hit, but the right-wing press were reduced to comical drooling simpletons trying to desperately muster up some kind of fake enthusiasm for Osbrowne's anticlimactic budget.
We need not dwell too long on the unspoofable nature of the yellow tories and their yellow box. Suffice to say that those who underestimate Clegg's ostrich faction - and their almost supernatural ability to turn disaster into utter calamity - should take heed. :-D
Re: Fixed term parliaments act.
ReplyDeleteThe Tories and SNP together look like they'll be able to force a Labour government to fail a vote of confidence at will.
Should the SNP pander to the supposed will of the media and not support Labour, we look to be having another election in a few weeks, with it then being one more election since either main party secured a majority, and two hastily assembled new sets of faces on the main party's leadership teams.
It's a simple majority to force a government out with a confidence motion, or a super majority to directly dissolve parliament. The fixed term parliament act doesn't enable governments that can't hold confidence.
I know, I was just making a semi-facetious point about how long we'd have to suffer a Tory government.
DeleteJust what is the point of saying "this is how we would do it" after signing off Osborne's budget? Once again proves just how pointless the Libdems are. A view reinforced by the huge number of empty seats at their Conference today.
ReplyDeleteJust what is the point of saying "this is how we would do it" after signing off Osborne's budget? Once again proves just how pointless the Libdems are. A view reinforced by the huge number of empty seats at their Conference today.
ReplyDeleteGo back to your constituencies and prepare for oblivion!
ReplyDeleteKinda OT but related.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone will be aware, there's attempts by the LibDems/Labour/Tory, Parties to 'save the Union' by encouraging voters to take part in organised tactical voting.
The people organising this call themselves 'Scotlands Big Voice, which is strange because if there's one thing that this group is determined to deny Scots, that's a voice.
It isn't going too well though, because unsurprisingly, some of the people who initially thought it was a great idea, are now finding out that the voters in their own seat are being told to vote for the 'other party' haha!
This has been happening in Dumfries & Galloway...Enjoy:
Scotland's Big Voice
15 March at 09:19 ·
.
You may have noticed that Dumfries and Galloway labour are a bit upset that we backing the Tories in Dumfries and Galloway.
We did not make this decision easily.
The SNP are gaining votes. The latest polling shows the SNP may triple their vote in the area! Where are they taking these votes from? They are taking them from labour. This will obviously lower labours votes. The Tories vote has always been steady and across the country it's been increasing.
Dumfries and Galloway has always been between labour and tory, in 2010 labour had a 7500 majority, it doesn't take labour to lose many votes to the SNP and the Tories to gain a few thousand and labour are suddenly out of the question.
The seat was also a Tory stronghold until boundary changes.
Dumfries and Galloway labour are trying to paint us as tory. We have taken one seat away from labour and they are up in arms. I'm such a close labour tory seat it was always going to cause issues, but SBV have been disgusted by recent behaviour from labour councillors, MSPs and MPs towards us. If they wanted to convince us to change it, acting like children was not the way.
I can assure you all that we are not tory. We have a group of 500 members from every constituency and a mix of every party, apart from SNP and greens. Every member can have a say on the wheel before it is released to the public.
This matter is now closed, and the wheel will not be changing.
Enjoy your Sunday
Opinium cross-break: Labour 32, SNP 30, Con 24, Others <5.
ReplyDeletehttp://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/sites/ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/files/vi_18_03_2015_tables.pdf
Fairly typical result for them with their heavy down-weighting of SNP. There were 72 SNP responders down-weighted to 42, although part of the down-weight is due to there being too many people in Scotland (152 down to 134).
So 47% of those 152 were declaring for the SNP
ReplyDeleteSurvation cross-break (size <100): SNP 51, Con 23, Lab 14, LD 7.
ReplyDeletehttp://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Final-MoS-Budget-Tables.pdf
Plug unashamedly.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/newsundayherald/status/579393679980384256
SNP membership rockets to 100,000 - full report in tomorrow's paper