Politics Thread!

[merman]

Cameron lied to Levenson - a legal inquiry, which started with each witness swearing to tell the truth.

Cameron's public apology and statement to Parliament repeated that lie - that Coulson had been "cleared" by the PCC before Cameron employed him in a Government post. A post for which Coulson did not undergo the same vetting procedure as previous holders of the same post.

Now, does that tell you that something was wrong and Cameron did not want people to find out?

[(o)(o)]

Nah he only employs the finest minds available..

Andy Coulson
Philip Green
Emma Harrison
etc...

BTW when is that PIG going to face justice? A4E were embroiled knee deep in fraud and she snaffled over £4m in a year they produced worse-than-doing-nothing results.

Cameron shifts the focus again by riding the coattails of the Longitude £10m Prize by finally... after YEARS of pleading from the science community.. put superbugs on the agenda.

Not one mention of the meat industry's role in all this of course.

[pogo]

We've already discussed the Leveson enquiry. Whatever the circumstances he's not going to be prosecuted over that. Statements in parliament are covered by parliamentary privilege which means they can say what they want without fear of prosecution, to allow for free debate. All they've got to fear is the opposition, as once a week the PM has to stand in front of MPs and answer questions, on anything and everything, in particular from the leader of the oppostion. Luckily for Cameron that means Ed Milband, who's the most ineffectual opposition leader to ask questions for a very long time.

We're less than a year from the general election. Voters don't want to hear about what Cameron knew about Coulson when he hired him seven years ago. They want to hear about the policies differences between the parties, what they will be doing if elected.

[(o)(o)]

We've already discussed the Leveson enquiry. Whatever the circumstances he's not going to be prosecuted over that. Statements in parliament are covered by parliamentary privilege which means they can say what they want without fear of prosecution, to allow for free debate. All they've got to fear is the opposition, as once a week the PM has to stand in front of MPs and answer questions, on anything and everything, in particular from the leader of the oppostion. Luckily for Cameron that means Ed Milband, who's the most ineffectual opposition leader to ask questions for a very long time.

We're less than a year from the general election. Voters don't want to hear about what Cameron knew about Coulson when he hired him seven years ago. They want to hear about the policies differences between the parties, what they will be doing if elected.

Conservatives tried to rig the next election with boundary changes but failed.

Labour are almost certain to get in. Regardless of your personal feelings toward Miliband.

http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/en-gb ... esult.html

[VNVObit]

We've already discussed the Leveson enquiry. Whatever the circumstances he's not going to be prosecuted over that. Statements in parliament are covered by parliamentary privilege which means they can say what they want without fear of prosecution, to allow for free debate. All they've got to fear is the opposition, as once a week the PM has to stand in front of MPs and answer questions, on anything and everything, in particular from the leader of the oppostion. Luckily for Cameron that means Ed Milband, who's the most ineffectual opposition leader to ask questions for a very long time.

We're less than a year from the general election. Voters don't want to hear about what Cameron knew about Coulson when he hired him seven years ago. They want to hear about the policies differences between the parties, what they will be doing if elected.

He can't be prosecuted for statements in Parliament but he can face parliamentary sanctions if they determined he had misled parliament (not that I see it happening).

As for what voters want to hear, if there's a doubt about Cameron's trustworthiness then he will be a liability, irrespective of what the policy differences are, and people will want to hear about what he knew before he hired Coulson. As it is he appears to have questionable judgement , not just on Coulson but also in handling negotiations.

[pogo]

Conservatives tried to rig the next election with boundary changes but failed.

Actually they tried to fix the system which currently has a large Labour bias, to make it fairer. Don't believe this? The Tories got 36% of the vote and got only 307 seats, not enough for a majority in 2010. Compare this to 2005 when Labour got a smaller share of the vote, 35%, but won 355 seats for a clear majority. Or to put it another way, if the vote is split down the middle then Labour win easily, the Tories need a much larger number of votes to win than Labour.

As for who will win we'll see. Labour were odds-on favourites to win in 1992 too, but the Tories and John Major won. And a lot can happen between now and next May. For one Scotland votes on leaving the UK. If the vote succeeds the Tories will have a much easier task winning an election held just in England, Wales and NI. If it fails the Tories being the most unionist party could see a bounce in their polls. And that's one of many things likely to affect the election. The odds available reflect this uncertainty:

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri ... most-seats

[tufty]

Meanwhile, here in Communist Frenchystan, ex-president (and rumoured future re-presidential candidate and toted saviour of the moderate[1] right) Nicolas Sarkozy has been arrested on corruption charges. Along with his lawyer.

[1] Moderate as in "Thatcherite" as opposed to the unlovely Mme Le Pen's lot.

[Harlequin]

Unfortunately, MPs are not allowed to (directly) call each other liars in the House.

We're less than a year from the general election. Voters don't want to hear about what Cameron knew about Coulson when he hired him seven years ago. They want to hear about the policies differences between the parties, what they will be doing if elected.

Did you not state a while ago that voters are very strongly affected by what they think of party leaders?

[gravy]

Pogo's a quantum entity. Measuring him is only going to lead to confusion

[Darkflame]

They want to hear about the policies differences between the parties, what they will be doing if elected.

Trustworthyness is kinda important even in that regard.
As is a sense of judgment over who they trust themselves.

I mean, their stated policy might be "puppies are cute!" but then they trust Cruella De Vil to implement that policy the public might not get what they want. You need to both agree with what their policy's are and trust what their saying and trust their ability to pull it off. Any one of those is missing their policys become meaningless.

[pogo]

Did you not state a while ago that voters are very strongly affected by what they think of party leaders?

Yes, and they don't think much of Miliband. Some of this is his own making; he should do more to distance himself from the previous Labour government, one of the least popular in history (its share of the vote was Labour's second lowest since 1945 – the lowest, just, was in 1983 when Michael Foot ran with a manifesto called "the longest suicide note in history"). But mostly it's a reaction to his personality, which he can't easily change. With a different leader Labour would be doing much better, and so probably strong favourites to win.

The mistake some people seem to be making is thinking voters care what Cameron did seven years ago when hiring Coulson. They don't, not now or in ten+ months time when voting. It's hardly been an issue, and as far as it was it ended with his accepting responsibility and apologising.

[VNVObit]

Did you not state a while ago that voters are very strongly affected by what they think of party leaders?

Yes, and they don't think much of Miliband. Some of this is his own making; he should do more to distance himself from the previous Labour government, one of the least popular in history (its share of the vote was Labour's second lowest since 1945 – the lowest, just, was in 1983 when Michael Foot ran with a manifesto called "the longest suicide note in history"). But mostly it's a reaction to his personality, which he can't easily change. With a different leader Labour would be doing much better, and so probably strong favourites to win.

The mistake some people seem to be making is thinking voters care what Cameron did seven years ago when hiring Coulson. They don't, not now or in ten+ months time when voting. It's hardly been an issue, and as far as it was it ended with his accepting responsibility and apologising.

So in short it matters who the party leader is if your labour but Tory voters don't care if their leader has poor judgement or wastes taxpayer money making apologises that cause problems for the judiciary requiring retrials.

Making

Pogo's a quantum entity. Measuring him is only going to lead to confusion

[pogo]

So in short it matters who the party leader is if your labour but Tory voters don't care if their leader has poor judgement or wastes taxpayer money making apologises that cause problems for the judiciary requiring retrials.

That's your view. But voters disagree. Cameron is the highest rated of the three party leaders, though it's more by default as the other two are so poor:
Half of voters tell Labour to ditch Miliband as his poll ratings plummet to a record low... even worse than Nick Clegg


Edit: and it's only likely to get worse for Miliband. I suspect many voters haven't formed a strong opinion of him he's not had that high a profile, but that will change as the election approaches. And so far the more exposure he gets the worse his poll ratings get. So expect his ratings to plumb new lows as election day approaches. He could win the election for the Tories almost single handedly.

[VNVObit]

So in short it matters who the party leader is if your labour but Tory voters don't care if their leader has poor judgement or wastes taxpayer money making apologises that cause problems for the judiciary requiring retrials.

That's your view. But voters disagree. Cameron is the highest rated of the three party leaders, though it's more by default as the other two are so poor:
Half of voters tell Labour to ditch Miliband as his poll ratings plummet to a record low... even worse than Nick Clegg


Edit: and it's only likely to get worse for Miliband. I suspect many voters haven't formed a strong opinion of him he's not had that high a profile, but that will change as the election approaches. And so far the more exposure he gets the worse his poll ratings get. So expect his ratings to plumb new lows as election day approaches. He could win the election for the Tories almost single handedly.

Actually that was your stated view, which possibly isn't your current view but could be again for a few minutes if it suits (only constant seems to be Tory Good, Others Bad).

Regardless you've backed up your latest view with a poll published in the daily mail before the announcement of Coulson's guilt or Cameron's apology which cost taxpayers money. The poll wasn't a ringing endorsement of Cameron just he is the least crap of them so wonder what it would look like now (still bad for the others but I suspect Cameron would have deteriorated from the lofty height of -5)

Oh and it's a sample of voters not all voters

[pogo]

Regardless you've backed up your latest view with a poll published in the daily mail before the announcement of Coulson's guilt or Cameron's apology which cost taxpayers money.

Cameron's apology cost taxpayers money how? The main costs to the public in all this were the Leveson inquiry and Coulson's trial. Are you suggesting one or those should not have happened? And they were not due to any statement/apology by the PM.

But I think you're really mistaken to think this will hurt Cameron politically. What little impact there might have been has been defused by his accepting responsibility and apologising. If anything he might see a boost from being able to put this behind him.

And yes, they're just polls. But the differences are so great that it's well beyond any plausible margin of error. Labour ignores them at their peril (though it's difficult to know what they can do at this point).