Of course they’re trying to interfere - that’s nothing new. Of course she’s posturing.
Or, as Eaton said in his “Brexit and Jeremy Corbin” article, linked in post 289:
[QUOTE=Eaton]
For former Labour voters, the purple stuff has proved a gateway drug to the blue stuff.
[/QUOTE]
Actually that one is an artefact of the quality of BBC reporting. Check out That Astonishing Tory Ferguslie Park Super Triumph - Craig Murray
(executive summary: the ward isn’t really that poor and the Conservative got through in the 10th round, with 13% of the vote)
Nearer 20% of the vote. The 657 number is just for first preferences. At the 10th round, clearly it’s not just first preferences that count. The quota for STV is usually: Total votes cast/(number of places to be filled + 1). In this case, there were 4 places to be filled so the quote would have been 20% of total votes cast.
Between eliminated candidates in successive rounds and the redistributed surplus votes of the two SNP candidates, approx 20% of the electors must have indicated that they would prefer the Tory candidate to at least one other candidate. The 7% who had him as a second or worse preference are the ones who pushed him over the line.
As **BG **says, it is an artifact of the voting system but we’ve had that system since May 2007 and it didn’t throw up Tory councillors then or in 2012, but did in 2017, when the Tories are enjoying a surge in the polls. This probably isn’t a co-incidence. It doesn’t mean everything, but it doesn’t mean nothing either.
Just looked it up - in 2012, the Tory candidate got 6.3% of the first preferences. Doubling that to 13% does suggest a broadening of appeal, though how far it reached into deepest darkest Ferguslie Park is another question.
There was talk today after lunch that Salmond and Robertson - two SNP bigwigs - might lose their seats.
Something like this?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcSMaNlcDPs
Exactly like that!
In 2015, Salmond won his seat with 47.7% of the vote. The Conservative candidate came third with 11.7%.
Angus Robertson did slightly better in Moray, taking 49.5% of the vote. True, the Conservative candidate did come closer here, with 31.1% so perhaps if all the other candidates withdraw he might be under threat.
Since the SNP actually increased their share of the vote, and their number of councillors in these local elections, I would put the chances of both Salmond and Robertson losing their seats as somewhere between inconceivable and completely delusional.
I’m on a conference call with Kier Starmer on Friday, he wants to talk to party members about the campaign 
The argument was that the fishermen and farmers are now strongly backing May. If they can be persuaded to vote in force, then the SNP could well be in trouble. Fortunately for the SNP the election is in June so if there’s good weather then both groups may well be unable to vote in person because they’ll be working. So the Tories have a lot of work to do very quickly to get people to apply for postal votes.
Tell him that in Scotland Labour, the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems need to form an alliance against the SNP.
I’m generally impressed by Sir Keir. Labour seem to have a good man there.
Yeah, this claim sounds like red meat for the troops rather than a sober analysis of prospective wins. But making the claim is quite good tactics nonetheless: a) it’s always good to sound confident, b) it keeps canvassers and leaflet droppers motivated and c) it might just shift the SNP’s focus a little from more marginal seats to these headline ones, on the “why take a chance” principle. If/when they don’t win these seats, they can laugh it off as always a long shot, so there’s no real downside.
Oh yes, instead of fiddling with income tax rates, how about uncapping National Insurance instead?
It was on the front page of the Times this morning.
Apparently the draft Labour manifesto has been ‘leaked’. Generating lots of publicity, of course. I fully expect that it’s an entirely deliberate ploy.
You can find it here.
I particularly like the renationalisation of the Royal Mail and the clampdown on abuses of zero-hour contracts and the gig economy.
Yes, the focus on workers’ rights is really strong. I also like the National Investment Bank, the Migrant Impact Fund, the scrapping of punitive benefits sanctions and the home building. I am quite happy with borrowing at historically low levels to fund investment.
I’m not that fussed about renationalising railways, and while I think the National Education Service for free lifelong learning sounds really nice, it’s something of a pipe-dream.
I do have concerns about the long term funding of NHS and social care, and one thing I’d like to see from all parties is a bit more honesty about how expensive this is going to be over the next 30 years and who’s going to have to pay. This manifesto promises not raise income tax on those earning less than £80K (95% of us), or National Insurance, or VAT. It does raise corporation tax significantly. But I don’t believe that the long-term funding needed to provide the services people expect can be done without raising taxes on people like me on middle incomes, and there doesn’t seem to be a political party that can face being honest about that.
Just as nobody wants to touch the present arrangements for council tax which are way out of date (and any fule kno that in a more and more mobile and globalised world it makes sense to look at shifting the focus of taxation from income to wealth, especially that which can’t move).
I’m not. How quickly we forget the Blair / Brown administration. ‘Investment’ is simply a term for kickbacks IMO.