Were you still up for Balls?
- Thread starter iainbhx
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No, it increases it slightly, to cut it down the LibDems would have to beat the Tories.
Well, the 2010 election is nearly over, except for the bits that will come up in the next post.
The Times, May 29th
An unusually high number of election petitions have been lodged following the General Election, there are eight in all, but only six can be judged to have serious merit. They are as follows:
Hartlepool: The Returning Officer has lodged a petition to change the declared result, this will certainly be accepted by the court. However, as the declared majority becomes only 177, the Liberal Democrats have placed a petition to have a court-performed recount, as had the margin been that low at the actual count they would have requested one.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone: Given the size of the majority, the Independent candidate has lodged a petition for a recount with scrutiny.
Llanelli: Given the size of the majority, the Labour candidate has lodged a petition for a recount with scrutiny.
Birmingham Ladywood: A petition with a number of allegations has been lodged by the Liberal Democrat candidate, mainly around the safety of the postal vote.
Birmingham Hall Green: A petition with a very large number of allegations has been lodged by the Respect candidate, mainly around the safety of the postal vote, but also with "Grell" conditions around leaflets on behalf of the Labour candidate false statements of fact about her personal character and the personal character of the winning Liberal Democrat candidate
Birmingham Perry Barr: A petition around the safety of the postal vote has been lodged by the Socialist Labour candidate.
East Devon: A petition has been raised by the Conservative candidate around the large number of ballots without the official mark and about the election expenses of the Liberal Democrats.
Mid Bedfordshire: A petition has been raised by the Conservative candidate under "Grell" conditions due to the number of false statements of fact about her personal character on blogs.
The first steps will be next month, where each case will be examined and see which will go forward to an election judge, for those cases which go to an election judge, then those would be most likely held in September. The Birmingham cases may well be held later than that due to the number of people arrested and charged with election offenses.
An unusually high number of election petitions have been lodged following the General Election, there are eight in all, but only six can be judged to have serious merit. They are as follows:
Hartlepool: The Returning Officer has lodged a petition to change the declared result, this will certainly be accepted by the court. However, as the declared majority becomes only 177, the Liberal Democrats have placed a petition to have a court-performed recount, as had the margin been that low at the actual count they would have requested one.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone: Given the size of the majority, the Independent candidate has lodged a petition for a recount with scrutiny.
Llanelli: Given the size of the majority, the Labour candidate has lodged a petition for a recount with scrutiny.
Birmingham Ladywood: A petition with a number of allegations has been lodged by the Liberal Democrat candidate, mainly around the safety of the postal vote.
Birmingham Hall Green: A petition with a very large number of allegations has been lodged by the Respect candidate, mainly around the safety of the postal vote, but also with "Grell" conditions around leaflets on behalf of the Labour candidate false statements of fact about her personal character and the personal character of the winning Liberal Democrat candidate
Birmingham Perry Barr: A petition around the safety of the postal vote has been lodged by the Socialist Labour candidate.
East Devon: A petition has been raised by the Conservative candidate around the large number of ballots without the official mark and about the election expenses of the Liberal Democrats.
Mid Bedfordshire: A petition has been raised by the Conservative candidate under "Grell" conditions due to the number of false statements of fact about her personal character on blogs.
The first steps will be next month, where each case will be examined and see which will go forward to an election judge, for those cases which go to an election judge, then those would be most likely held in September. The Birmingham cases may well be held later than that due to the number of people arrested and charged with election offenses.
Eton Rifles - Steve Hilton
It seemed that after the Queens Speech, at least some sort of outward peace reigned over the Conservative Party. Internally, there were massive bitch-fights over the Emergency Budget, which appeared to be formed into four factions. The nutters wanted to go for full-throttle cuts, faster and deeper than were in the manifesto and almost certain to plunge us into a very early election, much earlier than we would have wanted. George wanted to go pretty much for the manifesto, but with a few bones to throw to the LibDems, he had a reasonable amount of support for this. Dave wanted a majority and he wanted it badly, so he wanted to re-shape the cuts so that at least for this year, we would just cut the Labour excess. The two had very sharp words about this on at least one occasion. Fat Ken, on the other hand wanted an election-pleaser of a budget, but one with an edge to it, he'd some up with some fairly nasty cuts, but had thrown in a selection of populist ideas to soften the blows and build some popularity. Dave was almost swayed by this, but George didn't like the idea of the Rushcliffe Ruffian moving in on his turf. There were words, they were somewhat more blunt.
I tried to focus group all this lot, but quickly gave up. Firstly, some steaming mingebag leaked the results of one session to the Torygraph and secondly, it became bloody obvious that most people wanted cuts, just as long as they didn't affect them and preferably affected people they didn't like. Secondly, there was a spat between various people about Select Committee chaits, mainly involving Mercer and Arbuthnot.
Normally, I'd have expected Coulson to deal with this, but he wasn't settling into the role very well, so I had to intervene with some ideas. However, he was superb when it came to the Cumbria shootings situation, his suggestion that Dave, Clegg and Harriet all went up there together and stayed together for a day was brilliant.
Having given the geeks a couple of weeks off to recharge their batteries, or buy new anoraks or whatever they do with their time, I had orders to get them to work with campaigns to find "Eighty by October", but in order to do that, we needed a lot of agents assessments (and some of those were brutal) and we needed Cashcroft to get some polling done sharpish. I was quite keen on getting some of the local failures turfed out and replaced by some A-listers before the summer recess, but it seemed that the evidence was that in general A-listers had done just as badly as local worthies.
It seemed that after the Queens Speech, at least some sort of outward peace reigned over the Conservative Party. Internally, there were massive bitch-fights over the Emergency Budget, which appeared to be formed into four factions. The nutters wanted to go for full-throttle cuts, faster and deeper than were in the manifesto and almost certain to plunge us into a very early election, much earlier than we would have wanted. George wanted to go pretty much for the manifesto, but with a few bones to throw to the LibDems, he had a reasonable amount of support for this. Dave wanted a majority and he wanted it badly, so he wanted to re-shape the cuts so that at least for this year, we would just cut the Labour excess. The two had very sharp words about this on at least one occasion. Fat Ken, on the other hand wanted an election-pleaser of a budget, but one with an edge to it, he'd some up with some fairly nasty cuts, but had thrown in a selection of populist ideas to soften the blows and build some popularity. Dave was almost swayed by this, but George didn't like the idea of the Rushcliffe Ruffian moving in on his turf. There were words, they were somewhat more blunt.
I tried to focus group all this lot, but quickly gave up. Firstly, some steaming mingebag leaked the results of one session to the Torygraph and secondly, it became bloody obvious that most people wanted cuts, just as long as they didn't affect them and preferably affected people they didn't like. Secondly, there was a spat between various people about Select Committee chaits, mainly involving Mercer and Arbuthnot.
Normally, I'd have expected Coulson to deal with this, but he wasn't settling into the role very well, so I had to intervene with some ideas. However, he was superb when it came to the Cumbria shootings situation, his suggestion that Dave, Clegg and Harriet all went up there together and stayed together for a day was brilliant.
Having given the geeks a couple of weeks off to recharge their batteries, or buy new anoraks or whatever they do with their time, I had orders to get them to work with campaigns to find "Eighty by October", but in order to do that, we needed a lot of agents assessments (and some of those were brutal) and we needed Cashcroft to get some polling done sharpish. I was quite keen on getting some of the local failures turfed out and replaced by some A-listers before the summer recess, but it seemed that the evidence was that in general A-listers had done just as badly as local worthies.
Just Labour - Ed Miliband
As the deadline approached for the leadership contest, the media started a small feeding frenzy. The field was overcrowded on both the Blairite wing and on the left, with seven declared candidates, all searching for 22 nomininations, things were going to be very tight. It was certainly felt that at least one of the left candidates wouldn't make it and some commentators were saying that it was possible that all three wouldn't. However, Yvette as the last great hope of the Brownites, would probably easily get her nominations and it was felt that all three Blairites should do.
Most of the sniping was at David and I was left in a quandary. Obviously, I knew that if I didn't support him, the media would use it against him, but if I did support him, then I would not really be representing my political position in the party. After a couple of very long chats, we agreed that I would not nominate in this situation. It didn't take long for Labour Uncut to have a go about that, which was predictable. I wasn't the only one to take that position, four other MP's stated that they would not nominate and I was aware of about the same sort of number who weren't saying.
All the campaigns tried to get as many people to publically nominate as fast as possible, obviously, the impetus here would be to try and get the weaker candidates to drop out. No one passed the total on the first day, which surprised me as I thought David's team had things well under control, however, he was only one short. Murphy and Yvette were looking good as well, but Harriet and Andy Burnham were looking disappointed. It was looking obvious that the other two wouldn't make it and even they combined their votes, it wasn't looking healthy.
Of course, the media loved this. "CROWN PRINCE FAILS AT FIRST HURDLE" seemed to be the general tenor of it and Labour Uncut really wasn't helpful at all, but they seemed to have a problem that their support was very divided between Murphy and Burnham.
David passed the nomination hurdle at about ten past nine on the second day and McDonnell dropped out, asking people to switch their nominations to Dianne Abbott. Jim and Yvette, by this time were only just short of a nomination with Andy and Harriet lagging someway behind.
(you may get a few more posts today, due to the not-opening of the new Berlin airport, my flight back to Birmingham has been moved from 2pm to 6pm. Given I have to be out of the hotel by 12 and the weather is, umm, unpromising, I suspect I'm going to spend the afternoon holed up in the Senator lounge at Berlin-Tegel, where I get free wifi and I've read most of my books)
As the deadline approached for the leadership contest, the media started a small feeding frenzy. The field was overcrowded on both the Blairite wing and on the left, with seven declared candidates, all searching for 22 nomininations, things were going to be very tight. It was certainly felt that at least one of the left candidates wouldn't make it and some commentators were saying that it was possible that all three wouldn't. However, Yvette as the last great hope of the Brownites, would probably easily get her nominations and it was felt that all three Blairites should do.
Most of the sniping was at David and I was left in a quandary. Obviously, I knew that if I didn't support him, the media would use it against him, but if I did support him, then I would not really be representing my political position in the party. After a couple of very long chats, we agreed that I would not nominate in this situation. It didn't take long for Labour Uncut to have a go about that, which was predictable. I wasn't the only one to take that position, four other MP's stated that they would not nominate and I was aware of about the same sort of number who weren't saying.
All the campaigns tried to get as many people to publically nominate as fast as possible, obviously, the impetus here would be to try and get the weaker candidates to drop out. No one passed the total on the first day, which surprised me as I thought David's team had things well under control, however, he was only one short. Murphy and Yvette were looking good as well, but Harriet and Andy Burnham were looking disappointed. It was looking obvious that the other two wouldn't make it and even they combined their votes, it wasn't looking healthy.
Of course, the media loved this. "CROWN PRINCE FAILS AT FIRST HURDLE" seemed to be the general tenor of it and Labour Uncut really wasn't helpful at all, but they seemed to have a problem that their support was very divided between Murphy and Burnham.
David passed the nomination hurdle at about ten past nine on the second day and McDonnell dropped out, asking people to switch their nominations to Dianne Abbott. Jim and Yvette, by this time were only just short of a nomination with Andy and Harriet lagging someway behind.
(you may get a few more posts today, due to the not-opening of the new Berlin airport, my flight back to Birmingham has been moved from 2pm to 6pm. Given I have to be out of the hotel by 12 and the weather is, umm, unpromising, I suspect I'm going to spend the afternoon holed up in the Senator lounge at Berlin-Tegel, where I get free wifi and I've read most of my books)
Ship of Fools - the Parliament of 2010-2011 - Andrew Rawnsley
Parliament is and always will be, a bed of intrigue. Plots appear and disappear in the Members Bar just about every day and June 2010 was no exception.
Whilst Clegg was golden, there were a small hardcore of MP's both old and new who were opposed to having anything to do with the Tories at all, only the most excitable couple of them wanted an immediate General Election, but the media quickly learnt that if you wanted an off-message quote, then you went to Bob Russell or Linda Jack. If you wanted a bit of loyal disagreement, you went to Jerry Evans or Tim Farron. If you wanted sheer outright bewilderment you went to Rebecca Taylor or David Batey. However, some of the new LibDems, even those who had been very unexpectedly elected appeared to be settling in fairly quickly, Amy Kitcher had a very well acclaimed maiden speech and Jason Zadrozny had been quickly made Vince's PPS.
Of course, some of the newbies had to be made PPS's. The experienced LibDem strength ran to a Shadow Cabinet and 1-2 spokespersons for each department, plus a number of select committee chairs, even there a couple of newbies had been appointed. Of the old hands, only four had not been appointed to a role and of those, John Hemming was appointed chair of the Backbench Business Committee.
On the government side, there was a general feeling of gloom and doom, it was widely recognised that Cameron had failed. This was tempered by the comments of many that it had been a big ask and back in 2005, it had been expected to take two terms to oust Labour. However, two things mitigated against this, the first was the triumphalism of the "nailed on majority" from the previous year which had left a bitter taste in the mouths of many people. The second was just how abysmally Labour had performed and yet they had not won. Cameron himself, however, seemed safe, a lot of blame was being attached to Osborne and Letwin.
However, the steading influences of experienced Home Counties members weren't as omnipresent as usual, a lot of South Tories had seen 5%+ UKIP votes and the LibDems coming five thousand behind not fifteen thousand behind. One whip described it the Tory party as being "at a rolling boil" and neither the Mail or the Telegraph were helping one bit. However, Cameron had placed his junior ministers very carefully so that all factions were appeased in some way or another, but he had received a couple of stinging rebuffs on the way.
Labour were, of course, having their leadership contest, the start of this was a miserable affair with various accusations of "treachery", "turning to the right" and red-on-red friendly fire around the nominations process, but it settled down quickly after the nominations had been settled. A lot of the older MP's found it difficult to settle, for the last decade to be Labour had meant to have power and many of them, particularly of the 1997 intake found it difficult to adjust. Dennis Skinner, however, was back in his element of Opposition.
Parliament is and always will be, a bed of intrigue. Plots appear and disappear in the Members Bar just about every day and June 2010 was no exception.
Whilst Clegg was golden, there were a small hardcore of MP's both old and new who were opposed to having anything to do with the Tories at all, only the most excitable couple of them wanted an immediate General Election, but the media quickly learnt that if you wanted an off-message quote, then you went to Bob Russell or Linda Jack. If you wanted a bit of loyal disagreement, you went to Jerry Evans or Tim Farron. If you wanted sheer outright bewilderment you went to Rebecca Taylor or David Batey. However, some of the new LibDems, even those who had been very unexpectedly elected appeared to be settling in fairly quickly, Amy Kitcher had a very well acclaimed maiden speech and Jason Zadrozny had been quickly made Vince's PPS.
Of course, some of the newbies had to be made PPS's. The experienced LibDem strength ran to a Shadow Cabinet and 1-2 spokespersons for each department, plus a number of select committee chairs, even there a couple of newbies had been appointed. Of the old hands, only four had not been appointed to a role and of those, John Hemming was appointed chair of the Backbench Business Committee.
On the government side, there was a general feeling of gloom and doom, it was widely recognised that Cameron had failed. This was tempered by the comments of many that it had been a big ask and back in 2005, it had been expected to take two terms to oust Labour. However, two things mitigated against this, the first was the triumphalism of the "nailed on majority" from the previous year which had left a bitter taste in the mouths of many people. The second was just how abysmally Labour had performed and yet they had not won. Cameron himself, however, seemed safe, a lot of blame was being attached to Osborne and Letwin.
However, the steading influences of experienced Home Counties members weren't as omnipresent as usual, a lot of South Tories had seen 5%+ UKIP votes and the LibDems coming five thousand behind not fifteen thousand behind. One whip described it the Tory party as being "at a rolling boil" and neither the Mail or the Telegraph were helping one bit. However, Cameron had placed his junior ministers very carefully so that all factions were appeased in some way or another, but he had received a couple of stinging rebuffs on the way.
Labour were, of course, having their leadership contest, the start of this was a miserable affair with various accusations of "treachery", "turning to the right" and red-on-red friendly fire around the nominations process, but it settled down quickly after the nominations had been settled. A lot of the older MP's found it difficult to settle, for the last decade to be Labour had meant to have power and many of them, particularly of the 1997 intake found it difficult to adjust. Dennis Skinner, however, was back in his element of Opposition.
Recovering our Roots - John Cruddas
The final days of the nomination stage of the Labour leadership election were unedifying to say the least. All the candidates and their teams attempted to "touch base" with me, a couple of them suggested that perhaps I should run for deputy leader. I had to point out my rather small majority to them. My focus was going to be the constituency, especially as no-one believed that the Cameron minority would last more than a few months. I was, however, willing to make my voice heard on a short policy review.
By the time we came to the last day. Yvette, David and Jim had all passed the mark. Andy was 1 short and Harriet and Diane were several short. I hadn't nominated at that point and was not that keen on doing so, but I had decided to nominate Diane when the news came out that she was withdrawing and telling her nominees to back Harriet. Some of them, of course, didn't do this, which led to Andy passing the mark, but Harriet was then comfortably home. At this point I decided to nominate Jim because I felt of all the candidates, he was the most likely to look at radical change. I wasn't totally happy with Jim, in some ways I preferred Yvette, but I felt Jim probably more willing to take soundings from a wider spectrum of the party. I did make it clear that my nomination did not entirely translate to full-throated support.
With the nominations done, we looked forward to a summer of synthetic rows, the first of which was about the Deputy Leadership. Andy decided to make this an issue fairly quickly. None of this would be good for the party, so I decided to concentrate on building teams for the next election.
The final days of the nomination stage of the Labour leadership election were unedifying to say the least. All the candidates and their teams attempted to "touch base" with me, a couple of them suggested that perhaps I should run for deputy leader. I had to point out my rather small majority to them. My focus was going to be the constituency, especially as no-one believed that the Cameron minority would last more than a few months. I was, however, willing to make my voice heard on a short policy review.
By the time we came to the last day. Yvette, David and Jim had all passed the mark. Andy was 1 short and Harriet and Diane were several short. I hadn't nominated at that point and was not that keen on doing so, but I had decided to nominate Diane when the news came out that she was withdrawing and telling her nominees to back Harriet. Some of them, of course, didn't do this, which led to Andy passing the mark, but Harriet was then comfortably home. At this point I decided to nominate Jim because I felt of all the candidates, he was the most likely to look at radical change. I wasn't totally happy with Jim, in some ways I preferred Yvette, but I felt Jim probably more willing to take soundings from a wider spectrum of the party. I did make it clear that my nomination did not entirely translate to full-throated support.
With the nominations done, we looked forward to a summer of synthetic rows, the first of which was about the Deputy Leadership. Andy decided to make this an issue fairly quickly. None of this would be good for the party, so I decided to concentrate on building teams for the next election.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oooh..checks rib...is it broken?...aaargh...pain...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Ohmygod I've actually coughed up a bit of lung.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
[collapses]
I've got a bit of writers block at the moment, I've tried writing the next update and I just can't get it out.
I might skip forward a bit, the next two or three updates are proving difficult to write, but just really contain foreshadowing.
Having recent had a bad bout of writers block, I feel your pain. Don't worry, it will go away!
(Oh and it could be worse - http://oglaf.com/blank-page/)
Honestly it will be worth the wait and our lurking enthusiasm.
Take your time...all we hope for is that this doesn't die.
A coffee break during Thought Camp - late July 2010
So what's the idea behind this malarky then, we can't need a relaunch yet, the polls are fairly steady and we'll be off to the electorate again in October?
Well, old chap, that's the problem. The polls are rather steady. Seems the electorate still have rather a shine for Clegg and they loved Uncle Fester's antics during the emergency budget with that bloody calculator. Unless Labour pick Harman, any re-run will be exactly the same.
Hmm, but surely we are the only ones with enough money to fight another election. That should count for something, steady hand on the tiller over the summer and then ask the people for a decent government
Well, if this was 1974 again, I'd agree with you. But our ball-tossing beardie friend is right, we aren't facing a saturnine dog-shooter with a handful of seats, we've got a bloke who out DC'ed DC with his side kicks Laws and Cable shivving Gideon very successfully at any opportunity.
So, it's not going to be autumn then. Why are all those people out in the kiddies playground
Oh, it's the only place you can get even a bar of mobile reception. No, it will probably be next spring, same time as the locals again. Gives Labour a chance to regroup a bit, which as long as they don't choose Horrid Harriet may well work in our favour.
Well, they won't do that, I was talking to that chap from Yorkshire, salt of the earth - he reckons the Crown Prince will come through on transfers over Mrs Balls. Is that Eric at the top of that climbing frame?
Looks like it, that might end it tears, it's meant for the under 12's not Bradford trenchermen. Well, if it's Milliband, then he's a smart chap, he'll pull them out of their rut. Get some votes back from the Yellow Peril and back to politics as normal.
I've not so sure about that. They have a real spring in their step and they appear to have a lot more help than previously, I thought it would go away, but they got their thank you out very quickly. Most of mine is still languishing in boxes.
You've got a solid majority haven't you, I thought they were the masters of targeting.
I have, but I also have a little corner of two wards where they have councillors and they have been delivered and they have started on a second. Agent tells me lots of new faces.
So what's the next session?
"Making a Schlieffen plan of the mind" - a thought shower to find the best strategies for a majority
Christ, this is nearly as bad as Little Billy's Action Teams back in 1998. At least we aren't having to wear purple shirts.
Oh Gawd, Eric's fallen off the frame.
So what's the idea behind this malarky then, we can't need a relaunch yet, the polls are fairly steady and we'll be off to the electorate again in October?
Well, old chap, that's the problem. The polls are rather steady. Seems the electorate still have rather a shine for Clegg and they loved Uncle Fester's antics during the emergency budget with that bloody calculator. Unless Labour pick Harman, any re-run will be exactly the same.
Hmm, but surely we are the only ones with enough money to fight another election. That should count for something, steady hand on the tiller over the summer and then ask the people for a decent government
Well, if this was 1974 again, I'd agree with you. But our ball-tossing beardie friend is right, we aren't facing a saturnine dog-shooter with a handful of seats, we've got a bloke who out DC'ed DC with his side kicks Laws and Cable shivving Gideon very successfully at any opportunity.
So, it's not going to be autumn then. Why are all those people out in the kiddies playground
Oh, it's the only place you can get even a bar of mobile reception. No, it will probably be next spring, same time as the locals again. Gives Labour a chance to regroup a bit, which as long as they don't choose Horrid Harriet may well work in our favour.
Well, they won't do that, I was talking to that chap from Yorkshire, salt of the earth - he reckons the Crown Prince will come through on transfers over Mrs Balls. Is that Eric at the top of that climbing frame?
Looks like it, that might end it tears, it's meant for the under 12's not Bradford trenchermen. Well, if it's Milliband, then he's a smart chap, he'll pull them out of their rut. Get some votes back from the Yellow Peril and back to politics as normal.
I've not so sure about that. They have a real spring in their step and they appear to have a lot more help than previously, I thought it would go away, but they got their thank you out very quickly. Most of mine is still languishing in boxes.
You've got a solid majority haven't you, I thought they were the masters of targeting.
I have, but I also have a little corner of two wards where they have councillors and they have been delivered and they have started on a second. Agent tells me lots of new faces.
So what's the next session?
"Making a Schlieffen plan of the mind" - a thought shower to find the best strategies for a majority
Christ, this is nearly as bad as Little Billy's Action Teams back in 1998. At least we aren't having to wear purple shirts.
Oh Gawd, Eric's fallen off the frame.
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