Miliband on the trail

Bill Kristol-Balls

Why a Labour victory will be seen as a boost to Miliband is beyond me.

By-elections are times for people to give the government a bit of a kicking and so in a 3-way marginal with Labour in opposition, it should be a near certainty they'd win.

The Lib Dems spent decades winning by-elections off the back of discontent with the government.

Why anyone thinks they would now be able to avoid such a fate is a mystery.

charles hercock

Yes but he looked so wooden

And he cannot change that

toco

Red Ed and his equally freakish trades union paymasters can in the absence of any policies on anything whatsoever only moan and groan.Can't see Middle UK voters buying into his Greece/Eire type economic policies which Red Ed scripted for the hapless and unelected Brown.Red Ed should finish his 3rs before trying to get a proper job.

normanc

If Labour hold the seat?

hello, reality to The Spectator.

DavidDP

I suppose in some ways it is good to know that some Tory MPs are like many voters in that they are all for fighting the deficit, just not with the things they like thank you very much.

les

"Miliband on the trail" what trail would that be?

Aaron Porter has more presence, and that's saying something!

Labour should hold Saddleworth, if they don't then Labour are finished IMO - if they do what does it change exactly?

Publius

"It enables him to oppose key bits of the deficit reduction programme without sounding like an out of touch left-winger"

-- In other words, it enables him to be an unprincipled hypocritical liar without appearing to be one. This, we are told by Mr Forsyth, is "clever politics".

Tell me, Mr Forsyth, what is the "narrative" that you and your Hothouse buddies have cooked up for the coming weeks?

Holly ......

Yeah right.
There is NOTHING to show that Labour will win this seat.Just as there is NOTHING to show the others running will either.
Labour had 103 votes more than the others.
Not exactly a stonking number.
What was the turnout?
Will the voters angry with or about the treatment of Woolas come out & vote?
Will the voters who could not decide who was being honest,so stayed at home,now come out & vote.
Will the muslims come out and vote against Labour for all their nasty insinuations?
This is ANYONES to win,NOT just Labour's
simply 'cos they are Labour and this is the north.
And Labour say the Tories are arrogant.
This is NOT in the bag for Labour.

Publius

"...add to the sense that he is establishing himself as Labour leader"

-- Add to WHAT sense? I don't have that sense. Who does?

Holly ......

Miliband 'swings into action on the trail'
would surely have been a better heading and we would only have suffered one load of rubbish instead of two.

Geoffrey Hudson

And a sensible labour leader too. He could quickly come to power on the back of a collapse in the support of the Liberal Democrats for what are Conservative policies. Nick Clegg should realise he has backed the wrong horse and get out of the predicament he is in. The natural instincts of liberal democrats are closer to the present labour party policies. The Liberal Democrats should switch sides.

TrevorsDen

Uncomfortable about VAT?

SKY interviewed a couple in a shopping centre and tried to get them to dis the VAT rise. The woman pointed out that if there was no VAT rise then there would have to be even more cuts.

This makes her more perceptive than most Tory MPs.

Perhaps the only honest thing for Coffee House reporters and posters and commentators to do is first say how THEY would reduce the deficit before they pontificate?

Chris lancashire

Righto, so now we know what Milliband's against; but what is he for?
And exactly how would he handle the huge defecit he helped to create?

old fogey

Is this young shaver Forsyth the scribbling and dribbling equivalent of all those useless MP's, with their Oxbridge educations (usually in PPE--ugh !!); no doubt they are very intelligent and simply brimming with energy and ideas. But oh dear how incestuous they are, how juvenile, how melodramatic. MP's tend to regard themselves as somehow superior to the people they represent; more enlightened, more liberal, more compassionate; they appear to regard us as a foaming, angry, largely incoherent mob. Alas younger journalists also are beguinning to regard the greater public as somehow misinformed, incapable of reasoning and working things out for themselves. Frankly these shoddy MP's and their infatuated hack gofers deserve each other.

George Laird

Dear All

Happy new year to you all.

As to Red Ed and the Saddleworth race, the question is what will happen to the Lib Dem votes which Labour will be chasing hard.

Phil Woolas, he has been cast out and a new piece of lobby fodder preaching the usual platitudes will be put in place in a crafted by-election which I expect Labour to win.

I don't see a win as a 'comeback' for Milibland since he hasn't had the good sense to go away in the first place and stop sitting in his brother's seat.

The Lib Dems may try to play the role of the victim but the 'four horsemen of the apocalypse' have ruined that narrative.

Clegg, Cable Alexander and Laws are tainted goods and we all know it, even Cameron wants to shore them up.

2011 will be interesting.

As to me, a humble Glaswegian pottering about the place, I proposed a Scottish National Police on the 4th September 2010 at the SNP National Assembly.

There was no buffet and I had to take a packed lunch, ham sandwiches naturally!

12th January 2011, a statement will be made about the move to a single scottish police force by the Scottish Government.

So, it appears that my suggestions have found favour, even the Labour Party two months after I trotted it out was going with my idea which will save £194 million a year.

I got no credit for it.

You would think that someone who saved £194 million would at least get a thank you note from someone.

At my party conference in October 2010 the thinking was merger towards three or four forces in a speech called 'bobbies not boundaries'.

Luckily they have come round to George Laird type thinking because 'radical' needs to be on the agenda for Holyrood 2011.

It is good to be back here at Coffeehouse folks.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

theresa

i use like the spectator but it's becoming a Labour mouthpiece. there is nothing good about the Labour Party only the Media who put them on top. after leaving the Country in the mess i can't see any intelligent person would vote Labour.

perdix

Pure opportunism by Millipede and not particularly clever of Red Ed.But I suppose journalists have to write about something.

RKing

James
At this time in the cycle of politics it should be nye impossible for Liebour to lose.
Please don't get too excited it reveals your political naivity.

TrevorsDen

So the LDs should back the party which refused to cut the deficit - the ones who caused the deficit?

Leaving aside the fact that even with the LDs then labour would not have a majority to do anything, does even the thickest Labourite think the LDs would gain by associating themselves with not only the party which caused the problem but also undoubtedly taking the blame by that party for all the pain inflicted afterwards?

Being stuck with Labour would give them the worst of all worlds. With the Tories the LDs have a chance of being a part of success.

VAT affects discretionary spending. The biggest money ticket it will affect is housing extensions alterations. rEd is barking up the wrong tree. Holding or paying the VAT is a good special offer pitch for retailers.

alexsandr

TrevorsDen@January 3rd, 2011 5:15pm

1. turn off motorway lights. mebbe between midnight and 5am, some permanently
charge foreign lorry drivers to use UK roads.
trim a small %age off all benefits.
tax winter fuel payment.
start a campaign to turn off lights in rooms when not in use in government offices and facilities.
turn down heating in hospitals. does it really need to be that hot?
Make a tax on people sending money abroad. If people come here to work and send their wages home that does not benefit our economy.
hows that for a start?

Baron

Millipede can afford to be against, he ain’t running the show. All he has to do is to show sympathy with the unwashed, oppose everything the Government does, look concerned.

the electorate would have got angry with Jesus if He had imposed the cuts. You recall the leaked post-interview quip by BoJ’s King? The party in power during the cuts and stuff will be out of office for a generation, he was quoted as saying. He’ll be proven right, I am afraid. Millipede could morph into a baboon, people would still give him a chance when the next big count comes.

David

When is Clegg going up to Oldham.I am sure he would receive a good reception.

TrevorsDen

http://scottishlaw.blogspot.com/2009/03/further-calls-for-debate-on-single.html

Note - 2009!
'Leading chief constables have made unprecedented calls for an immediate debate on whether Scotland should move towards a single national police force.'
'Their comments ... come just a week after Paddy Tomkins, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, called for Scotland's eight forces to be amalgamated into one to remove duplication and save money. '

So leading chief constables had the idea first .... who'd a thunk it?

Rabyrover

No coverage for the Conservatives on BBC's North West TV. Are they there? Or more BBC bias?

Paddy

I think Master Forsyth is just trying to "wind us up".

TrevorsDen

Alex - thats a pretty poor start.
I think a small %age IS being 'trimmed' of benefits by switching the inflation index. predictably Labour complained.

How do you propose to reduce the 80 billion structural deficit by something more than turning the lights out

toni

"In other words, it enables him to be an unprincipled hypocritical liar without appearing to be one. This, we are told by Mr Forsyth, is "clever politics".

Course it it's clever politics, he's learning by example from the current lot.
Nice picture btw, he really looks the part of a PM in waiting, has a characterful face, unlike doughy Dave's.

2trueblue

Rabyrover, the BBC aould not possibly give coverage for the Conservatives as they belong to Liebore. I am amazed at the lack of real journalism in the UK. I truely object to paying for the BBC which I used to call the Blair/Brown coporation. I reckon the only reason Balls was not supported as a potential Liebore leader is that the BBC would be known as what it is the Balls Broadcasting Coprporation. Very fitting.
Liebore may win the seat, so what? We have yet to learn how bad things really are. The details of the financial mess Liebore presided over have not yet been fully disclosed, and the ramifications will be felt for over a decade. The coalition has got to be a good thing in that it prevents Liebore from playing the blame game so easily.

Fergus Pickering

alexandr, you seem to live in world of your own. How much would that lot save? I doubt if it would pay for the campaign. Think of something that WOULD save money. I know. Charge school fees in State Schools. That should do it. You see, old fruit, the cuts people don't mind are the ones that save sweet fanny adams. The ones that REALLY save money, people don't like. Simples, as the little rodent says.

Bonzodog

I heard the BBC say today about prices going up by 2.5% due to the VAT increase. I do wish that some people would learn basic mathematics. Prices will go up a smidgin under 2.1% (assuming that the retailers do not take the opportunity to rip us off ...)

Ahmed Khan

I think we are reading too much into the Oldham East by-election. This will not be decided by policy but by the large Muslim vote which is likely to go to Labour!

It's the Pakistani vote wot will win it for the Labour..

Frank P

Miliband on the trail? Miliband is a trail - of genetic Marxist slimey shite, laid like a cable by three generations.

Tarka the Rotter

If 'Miliband' is the appropriate collective noun for socialist brothers, would 'Siliband' be appropriate for the Harmanising sisterhood? Most consult my Fowler...