And another thing…

Braw brae bonnie nicht the noo?

Did that actually happen? Pleeeeeeease tell me it did…

It did indeed, Dave.

Hahahahaha!

That would be funny . . . if it wasn’t really how Labour intend to fiddle the vote in Glasgow NE with postal votes.

Still, good luck with Glasgow NE . . . it won’t be quite so easy in a constituency where there are more educated folk.

I assume that with such a patronising and offensive view of the working class, Silent, you are a nat?

Labour MP in postal vote disenfranchisement shocker..

I think you were being very considerate, Tom. Let’s hope they are indeed having a great holiday.

No Tom.

I’m an ex Labour voter . . . don’t you remember?

You’ll find that there are a lot of us at the next General Election.

You know? . . . people who didn’t intend to vote for a warmongering party, or one that sold out to the greedy bankers or who treat ordinary “working class” people like criminals.

What’ the tally so far? . . . 3000+ new laws for us to break.

I think “patronising” is rather what Labour have been doing for their support in such “working class” areas as Glasgow NE. I wonder how they feel about paying their taxes to keep Lord Springburn in the lap of luxury he went into politics to get.

Remember . . . ” I didn’t get into politics to not take what’s owed to me”

Truth hurts, mate.

Yeah, I remember – you’re an ex-Labour voter. I didn’t ask who you used to support; I asked if you currently support the nats.

Silent Hunter used to claim that he misjudged Tony Blair.

Admitted no judgement, but lots of gob.

Actually, I vote Green by conscience but I fully intend to vote tactically at the General Election for the SNP in Stirling to get rid of our useless Labour MP.

Does that answer your question Tom?

Yes, it confirms my suspicions.

BTW . . . I note that you revert to how I vote rather than address any of the points I mentioned about why I’m an ex-Labour voter.

Funny that.

Why does this Downfall movie keep coming to mind as I read your posts on the issue?

Good one Tom.

I also liked Micheal Winners this week.

I have been reading a fantasic book about glue.

Its so good I just cant put it down.

It made me laugh anyway.

You accuse Silent Hunter of having a “patronising and offensive view of the working class”

Would that the denizens of Glasgow NE were “working” class!

Silent Hunter is right on the demographics – Ds and Es traditionally vote Labour (if they vote at all), or recently, BNP (which says a it all)

The C2s are the ones to watch, people who are scarce in this battleground. It is generally held that skilled manual workers assuaged your “disappointment” in 1997, and will bring back the discomfort in 2010.

Accordingly, given the depressing lack of people with any kind of job in Glasgow NE (the highest rate for jobseekers allowance in Scotland), let alone a skilled one, together with a low turn out, this is not going to be a portent of a general election result.

There is nothing offensive about telling it how it is:

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Glasgow-North-East-byelection-Decision.5816985.jp

however unpalatable the truth may be.

The hard pounding of the snp cannons fall silent the fog of battle slowly clears to reveal.
The shining citadel of a Labour Glasgow North East glinting in the early morning sun..

the people of Glasgow North East have spoken
and with once voice they have cryed out……

FREEDOM! from the snp

What did Voter say next?

No doubt about it tonight was a bad night for the SNP.
We didn’t perhaps have the strongest candidate, the campaign we ran was possibly too positive and didn’t attack the 74-year-incumbancy for their dismal failure to do anything significant for the area in the last seven decades, and we got too bogged down in irrelevant crap like birthplaces and where someone works…

Moving forward, there was a I think a small amount of complacency in the party; a sense that “our time has come” and that not much is required.
Our time is coming, but we need to work for it. People aren’t going to switch to voting SNP without good reasons and someone has to tell them the good reasons. Not fancy-shmancy leaflets (no matter how well designed) , nor mail-shots or media-love but solid hard canvassing and responding to the needs and fears of the people.

I hope this defeat will spell a shot in the arm for our Party so we can finally, as a nation shrug off the shackles of English-based Unionist parties and embrace the winds of change that blow still strong in Scotland’s fair glens.
Even if the weather forecast in Springburn this evening was a little becalmed….

aaaaaaand…..it’s a Labour victory, by quite a large (percentage) margin. Glenrothes-style damp squib for SNP yet again; why is this exactly? It is starting to seem like Glasgow East was an exception, rather than a standard,

Well, in regards to the SNP candidate, there was a “bit of a wahnt aboot ‘im” as my gran would say. SNP surely could have mustered a better candidate, David Kerr wasn’t exactly MP material, unlike John Mason in the Glasgow East by-election, who clearly was, and has proven to be so – every time I flick onto BBC Parliament, he’s there, and usually speaking too.

Best wishes to Willie Bain. I hope he is a strong representative for Glasgow North East.

Congratulations Tom! Another fine Scottish victory. Salmond & the other scunners dished again.

One should expect spoilers to turn up, the very dregs of dishonesty, servants and liars following the billionaire’s will.

Look back, they meld their “reasons” to suit the current anti Labour propaganda.

And those who have made common cause with the extreme right online – people who will tell us they are not anti semitic, just anti muslim – deserve very little – if any – attention in my view.

I just knew all the billionaires’ minions would turn out to try and say “Yah Boo” but let it out as “BooGah” . . .

So in perhaps the most nearly prime seat for the BNP in Scotland, at a time when HMG is still leading the UK from the worst international recession the BNP lost another deposit, and the Tories looked sillier than usual.

All the weight of SNP expectation and activists couldn’t swing the postal vote either, obviously time to limit the numbers of Labour activists permitted into a seat in a by-election the media would have loved Labour to lose.

Well done Tom, I am sure you must be pleased.
Just a point in passing about BBC favouring Labour. I remember when the Tories won a safe seat they previously held just like this one. the BBC headline was ” Consrevatives retain SW Anytown”
BBC Headline today ” Labour wins in Glasgow NE.”

Both are correct but but they make Labour look more positive. They do this sort of thing all the time.It just reinforcing the Labour good Conservative bad brainwashing.

Congrats to Labour and kudos to Jim Murphy – just heard him on Radio Scotland, being very gracious about the other candidates including Mr Kerr.

Kudos also to the Tory candidate, if the Tories have any sense at all they’ll put her up for a winnable seat at the general election.

Politicians moan about the lack of turn-out in elections.

Nice of you to help

Johnny N:

Quite mistaken, as ever.

To win “SW Anytown” is a headline which suggests that you will win other similar towns, while “Glasgow NE” doesn’t carry any such implication.

The Beeb is pro Tory more often than the converse.

@Johnny Norfolk, the BBC is spot-on, it is technically a win/ gain for Labour because the seat used to be the Speaker’s.

@Quietzapple “when HMG is still leading the UK from the worst international recession ”

According to Brown we would be leading the world out of recession.

He was wrong about that.

According to Brown, because of his policies we were best placed to weather the recession, but he was wrong about that too.

In fact, for a lot of countries, this wasn’t their longest, deepest recession ever. But thanks to Brown’s policies, it has been ours.

On the contrary Simon:

Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling Did lead the world out of recession – see the London G20.

And we are weathering the recession better than most countries – look at the far higher Unemployment in the USA and the Euro zone.

You implied that you are the Hi Panjandrum of Finance, check out your Citizens’ Advice maybe?

Quietzapple,

Ok, now I know you are delusional.

Thanks for your time.

Lol!.

Oh, ok Simon, you don’t claim any economic knowledge, sorry . . .

@Quietzapple

A rather disturbing, if somewhat typically Labour, misreading of the facts.

France and Germany had much higher unemployment rates leading up to the recession, but they have much better welfare states which means that the unemployed can lead some form of life.

How can the UK be leading anyone out of recession when we are still IN recession? France and Germany have both started growing their economies again with a much lower spend by their governments.

It is nice you have such a grasp of economics that you can somehow switch unemployment and recession around in your head. Unfortunately, in the real world, that doesn’t hold.

You actually remind me of the lunatic right in America where they believe everything Fox news says and if the statistics don’t back them up they make them up. Your us vs. them attitude is typical of UK politics, but it has no place in the deepest recession in living memory.

@Quietzapple, I expect you believe Labour have been “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” too. If so, why have 35,000 people been cautioned for assault rather than prisoned, since 2004 ? Even worse, why have over 100 rapists, been cautioned rather than imprisoned ? And 66 of those were cautioned for child rape.

And of course after Tony Blair declared his focus would be “education, education, education”, things have got so much better haven’t they. If so, why are the numbers of children leaving primary school unable to read increasing ?

And Gordon Brown wouldn’t break his “Golden Rules” on borrowing and debt.

Do you also believe the Millenium Dome was a spectacular success ?

I’m all for being supportive of your chosen party, but you can’t deny the facts.

Quietzapple

Yoy said
“The Beeb is pro Tory more often than the converse”

Any examples please.

Nasty socialists do concern themselves re the Unemployment which accompanies recessions, part of both syndromes., Simon.

There, there . . . You stick to a definition which excludes Unemployment, getting ready for the vile case that Osborne is i/c the UK economy. After all Howe and the big bottomed committee have been offering advice.

Johnny: Sorry my friend, I hadn’t realised that Norfolk was blacked out from BBC’s blanket 24/7 coverage of the Sun’s recent magnificent campaign to finish poor Gordo off:

http://www.slate.com/id/2235055/pagenum/all/

For once I agree with the Dirty Digger, and the Gordon Brown handwriting bad campaign is the most obvious big example.

I always regard the BBC as being basically centre left, but with a strong undercurrent of political correctness and multi-culturalism, which makes them appear to be rather more left wing (and silly) than they are.

@Quietzapple – we are the only G7 country still in recession – however you manipulate the figures.

That is nothing to be proud of.

(According to the BBC’s Today program this morning, we are only “technically in recession”. That’s a bit like saying we are only “technically in debt”.)

Nor is there any reason to be proud of making a law that allows child rapists to be let off with a caution. Or are you ready to defend that too ?

But, Libranos, you likely regard Nick Robinson as a leftie too? When it counts he calls HMG liars, no response permitted. When it doesn’t matter much he will go a bit waffly and the extreme right wing bloggers will hail on the Beeb’s complaints.

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/11/13/revealed-how-tory-staffers-are-astro-turfing-leftwing-blogs/

I have read accusations of left wing bias on the BBC very often on blogs, inc Nick Robinsons where one may not refer to his “past,” the thesis being that if enough people make out that they are appalled by the Beeb’s left wing behaviour the Corporation will eventually take on Attila the Hun as DG. Looks to be working too . . .

I’d accept that Woman’s Hour is usually to the left of centre, but the programmes which help create such consensus as there is in the UK like Breakfast, The News are biased in favour of the right wing newspapers and thence their Billionaire expat/foreign owners’ right wing opinions.

No doubt at all.

Foolish of course, because retaliation is inevitable.

SillY SimoN:

The UK’s preliminary growth figure for the period Jul – Sep was -0.4%.

Neow this is the uncorrected figure for what happened over that period, a more accurate figure will be issued, as usual, when it is available.

It maY noT be quite outside your ken to understand that the figure for those 3 months may well obscure a greater fall in July and rises in Aug & Sept.

Please do come back when you have taken those concepts on board, and I’ll consult my team of Nobel Prize Winning mice for how exactly to put any further education your way.

@Quietzapple, I certainly have a better understanding than you appear to.

Everyone’s published figures are preliminary until the more accurate figures are available.

The figures published show we are still in recession. The last of the G7 countries to still be in recession.

This is contrary to the position Gordon Brown said we would be in.

You cannot deny the facts, (although you are having a damn good try).

@Quietzapple

“But, Libranos, you likely regard Nick Robinson as a leftie too?…”

I regard him as one of the best political
editors on television.

In my view it’s an error to regard someone one knows not to be of one’s own political persuasion as being, therefore, intrinsically biased in the conduct of their work.

He’s scrupulously even handed and offers useful analysis.

Poor Simon: We produce our figures more quickly than any other leading country or group, which is why our are more likely you be significantly adjusted. So you don’t disagree with me, just trolling . . I see . .

Libranos: Tosh! He is not remotely even handed (whatever that would mean). The fact that right wingers say such as yourself, or make out he is a leftie, while other objectively minded observers such as myself note his careful bias, which is applied mindfully, simply reinforces my view.

The fact that few right wing trolls can adjust their nonsense to convince people by making out that they sometimes see the opposing point of view doesn’t mean that Robinson is not biased. I recall his mentor Brian Redhead comments, but this is another stitch up – WIKI has deleted that.

But we still have:

“In 1995, while Robinson was at Panorama he wrote an internal BBC memorandum suggesting lines of defence over an interview with Prime Minister John Major. When leaked it gained attention from the Labour Party[6] who perceived it as the legitimised denial of equal time in the run up to local elections.[7]”

“Brian Redhead later encouraged his career in journalism.[3] In 1986, he spent a year as national chairman of the Young Conservatives;[4] he does not state this in his own blog biography.[1][5]” (Nor may it be mentioned in comments on his blog in my experience)

The fact that he can appear on “The BBC News” and speak of the Prime Minister in terms which a predecessor, Labour supporting John Cole would not have dreamed of says more about those two gentlemen than the Prime Ministers of their days.

@Quietzapple

I’m inclined to think that left wing voters tend to regard left-leaning commentators as unbiased, and right wing voters tend to do the same with right-leaning commentators.

Isn’t it natural?

True, Liberanos, but inadequate as an explanation for the real bias which is often present.

I doubt you recall the Glasgow Media Group, which, for a time, accurately tracked the bias in the Thatcherite media in the 1980s.

I doubt you interest yourself in Marxian theories of Information/culture as Sir Keith Joseph did?

There is no doubt that the Billionaire media’s bias is swallowed by the BBC, for example, and that, as the Tories are expected to win, the median view of presenters on BBC Breakfast, for instance, has been shifted rightwards.

Nick Robinson is biased, cleverly, while John Cole sought to be unbiased 99% of the time.

Big Difference.

@Quietzapple, no need for your pity, thanks. I suspect I will be happier with the result next May than you will be.

As I said here before, I had high hopes was Tony Blair was elected. But he simply didn’t deliver on his promises.

And now we have a Government that lectures Banks on paying bonuses, but spends millions of pounds, of tax-payers money, itself on bonuses for civil servants. Money that the country cannot afford to pay, given the amount of debt we are in.

What I would like from my next Government is one that knows when to spend and when to save.

Also one that sends rapists to prison rather than letting them off with a caution.

And one that educates our children, rather than training them to pass exams.

@Simon:

We shall see. The bonuses to Cicil Servants at the M o D are part of their reasonable pay expectation, if they do their work to targets. Chameleon would like to cut their pay, and sane conservatives are realist enough to know that motivation is important at work.

Best form I ever worked for used bonuses.

I expect you are looking forward to Lady Dully Maul telling judges what to do, in person no doubt.

Your clown HMG in waiting had 3 (THREE) policies on Northern Rock on the same day, and their average policy re borrowing and lending over the past few months would have put us into a new recession, possibly this year, certainly next.

I doubt I shall have good reason to pity you for long, you’ll get over being on the losing side in the GE, your side has been for quite a bit . . .

@Quietzapple,

whoever wins the next election will be forced to cut the Civil Service budget, and that means people losing their jobs.

Labour supporters may well scream and cry about the nasty Tories who don’t care about the unemployed, but the blame lies solely with the party who inherited a strong and growing economy and spent money like a child in a sweet shop.

If I was a Labour MP now, I would feel like someone who won the lottery jackpot 12 years ago, and who has not only spent the lot, but lived a life that has left them heavily in debt.

To me, that is a sickening feeling.