john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 25, 2024 10:15:58 GMT
That boundary proposal looks like someone was trying to draw a poodle?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 24, 2024 20:28:13 GMT
You’ve stayed at the Britannia then? How did you guess?! I stayed there twice. The second time was booked before my first visit.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 24, 2024 17:12:16 GMT
Even if it’s a dingy B&B that hasn’t seen a lick of paint this century? If it's somewhere to sleep and get changed that's good enough for many an attendee. And you should see some of the hotel rooms in Birmingham and Manchester I've been in... You’ve stayed at the Britannia then?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 24, 2024 1:10:30 GMT
As a delegate at one of the last Labour Party conferences that was held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, I can say exactly why Labour stopped coming there after 2002 and the Conservatives stopped coming after 2007. It's simply not suitable as a modern conference venue. I went to numerous Labour Party Conferences at Blackpool, one as a delegate and others ex-officio as a Parliamentary Candidate. Back then it alternated between Blackpool and Brighton. Once, as a PPC, I was sitting next to Fenner Brockway. He gave me a lot of advice for the future. He would have been in his nineties back then. I did attend Regional Conferences at Blackpool. That meant that you could get to stay at the Imperial. At Party Conferences in Blackpool, everyone wanted to drink at the Imperial. After hours, non-residents could not buy alcohol. That was unless you could offer to buy a drink for a resident and get hold of their key and present it to the night porter.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 23, 2024 20:50:49 GMT
The regions have been around for nearly sixty years long before the European Parliament elections. They were established initially as part of the Regional Policy initiative under George Brown and the Department of Economic Affairs. There were Regional Economic Planning Councils and Regional Economic Planning Boards. The former were talk shops with local worthies and the latter were composed of civil servants.
The idea was revived under Blair following Scottish and Welsh devolution (plus similar for Greater London) to do the same for the English Regions. This was strangled at birth when the referendum for the North End failed to deliver much support.
The regions may have shifted in shape in line with local government boundaries and with the transfer of Cumbria from the North to the North West. They are still retained for statistical reasons and for parliamentary seat redistribution. The Regions are not going to disappear .
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 23, 2024 9:55:49 GMT
Are Conservative and Labour transposed in Newcastle and Gateshead? I have been transposed as a newt in Newcastle a time or two. Never in Gateshead though.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 23, 2024 9:36:21 GMT
If they are capable of making such a basic mistake, why should anyone believe anything they publish? I tend to be suspicious of polls for an election where a low turnout is expected regardless of the methodogy employed.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Fylde
Apr 22, 2024 20:45:24 GMT
Post by john07 on Apr 22, 2024 20:45:24 GMT
and their father of course was a Tory MP too. Not to be confused with Ronald Atkins, Labour MP for nearby Preston North, who died a few years back aged 104.
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john07
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Post by john07 on Apr 21, 2024 17:49:26 GMT
I presume someone is working on a more detailed rebuttal, could prove very interesting. Does everything it touches turn to shit?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Apr 21, 2024 9:43:27 GMT
So we have a situation where local and national politics don't mesh. In local political terms what they did made sense, in national political terms it didn't and in the end national politics will trump local politics where it is troublesome. They ought to mesh, though. Let's go through it again. Galloway, especially since being thrown out of the Labour Party 20 years ago, has had a consistently terrible record on antisemitism, quite apart from his uncritical support of bloody autocratic, and sometimes genocidal, régimes including Syria & Iran's clerical fascists - and before someone goes for the tu quoque, I am absolutely not a supporter of Israel's current administration, indeed I hate them with a passion, even though I believe in the state's right to exist within secure borders, and to defend itself where necessary. He goes far, far further than simply being an anti-Zionists, and this is why he was endorsed by the neo-Nazi and Jew-hater Nick Griffin. He also scandalously attempted to blame Naz Shah for what was essentially her statutory rape. He constantly pathetically but very nastily attempts to undermine legitimate free speech via threats of legal action. The list goes on and on. If Galloway wishes to say Vote Lib Dem in Spotland, there's nothing the LDs can do to stop him doing that; but even if he is currently the local MP, he should be totally beyond the pale in terms of posing for pics with him, and so on, and someone active in the Lib Dems at whatever level should be aware of that, surely. The endorsement of Galloway OUGHT to be something to be actively avoided, and repudiated if it happens; voters need to be made aware of what he really is, what he really stands for. Instead of which he wins elections from time to time, then swans around the country or indeed to other countries neglecting his constituents, and second time around they realise that he is not a good representative. You forgot him toadying up to Saddam Hussain and saluting his ‘indefatigability’!
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 19, 2024 13:38:43 GMT
Labour supporters are a llaw unto themselves. Is llaw the Welsh for Law?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 19, 2024 12:36:18 GMT
Apart from anything else the residential rule could easily be got around by moving in or acquiring an accommodation address within the constituency.
My former Constituency in Leicester East had this issue. Keith Vaz, a Christian born in Aden of Goan origin, living in London, was parachuted in by the party centrally to get the Asian vote. The sleazeball appeared to move into the constituency pretty sharply. He appears to be still chair of the CLP now.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 19, 2024 8:18:27 GMT
It would mean massive competitions in seats with major maternity hospitals, and limited competition in some rural constituencies where local medical opinion strongly opposed home births. I noticed years back that a massive number of Scottish footballers appeared to have been born in Bellshill. This really puzzled me as to why. That was until someone pointed out that the main maternity hospital for Glasgow and much of the west central belt was in Bellshill.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 19, 2024 0:53:52 GMT
Meanwhile, I'd love to know what prior link Yvette Cooper claimed to Pontefract, Normanton and Castleford, or indeed what the Norwich born and raised Ed Balls had to Morley and Outwood! Cooper was of course a well connected political insider appointed at the last minute by the NEC without the local party having a say - a common occurrence in the Labour Party. I believe her only tenuous connection was that her grandfather had been a miner. Bloody hell, do you have to have been born in a Constituency to stand there? That would rule out a very large proportion of MPs and candidates. Having said that there are serious problems with the current political culture in all parties. We all know that large numbers of candidates for Labour are parachuted in after being councillors in Islington or, more likely SPADs. That is the current trends that are increasing making being an MP somewhat restricted to political insiders. There is almost the creation of a political 'caste'. This may go some way to explaining why they sometimes make such a bollox of things.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Apr 18, 2024 22:16:42 GMT
The old County boundaries do not provide the best way to define economic zones. Glossop certainly is functionally part of the Greater Manchester conurbation along with the likes of New Mills. Dronfield would be a better fit for Yorkshire. Excluding Leicester from the East Midlands looks borderline insane. High Peak doesn't have council elections this year, I wonder how low turnout / how high protest votes might be in High Peak for the mayoral election. Of course being the bellwether Labour should win, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a severe lack of enthusiasm from what is a traditionally high turnout area. I know BBC TV regions have their own sometimes ludicrous boundaries, but even Buxton, never mind Glossop, is part of the North West region. So they probably won't even get any news about the EMCA and will probably see more of Burnham day-to-day than any EMCA Mayor! Most of these issues can be traced back to the trashing of the Redcliffe Maud Report and cutting back the new Metropolitan areas to retain more of the shire areas. It took decades to sort the mess out and it is still not complete.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 18, 2024 18:39:22 GMT
Mark Pack has an explanation of the differing figures. Please enlighten us.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Apr 18, 2024 18:31:24 GMT
Mad that this are will border with Greater Manchester. Another person for Andy to take pictures with. I wonder why Leicester wasn’t included too, as it’s often regarded as the remaining key city in the East Midlands (sorry Lincoln and Northampton, even if you’re not a city). And yes it feels a bit odd for all the rural northern hinterland to be included in a ‘metro mayor’ area but then again we will have York and North Yorks too. I blame it on the fact that the cities of Derby and Nottingham are sub-optimally right down at the south of their respective counties and not the middle like they should be, a la Leicester or Oxford (post-74!). I guess a more ‘metropolitan’ focussed mayoral area/CA ‘along the A52’ focussing on say Derby, Erewash, S Derbyshire, potentially Amber Valley, and Nottingham, Broxtowe, Gedling, Rushcliffe and Ashfield, would just cause conflict over the exact boundaries themselves. Given that the role primarily relates to transport and economic development a core East Midlands authority based on Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and their hinterlands would have made sense. Including Glossop, Chesterfield, Retford, etc in such an authority is utter madness. The old County boundaries do not provide the best way to define economic zones. Glossop certainly is functionally part of the Greater Manchester conurbation along with the likes of New Mills. Dronfield would be a better fit for Yorkshire. Excluding Leicester from the East Midlands looks borderline insane.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Apr 18, 2024 16:35:23 GMT
24% or 40%. That's more than the MoE isn't it. Yes, one must be pretty fundamentally wrong Or both?
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Apr 18, 2024 14:28:54 GMT
Spotted in the Craven Herald & Pioneer: “Independent Keith Tordoff was originally the Yorkshire Party candidate but was deselected when he promised free chickens for 2,000 households.” It worked well for Mayor Daley (Senior) in Chicago. Mind you he had a cop go into the polling booth to make sure they voted for Daley first before handing over the chicken.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,541
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Post by john07 on Apr 17, 2024 23:38:23 GMT
Since the housing problem is in the South, here's an idea, close Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted, London City, Southampton, Bournemouth, Bristol and any I've missed, as well as the subsidised London Underground and Overground, build thousands of houses on the land, and make southern Liberal Democrats and Greens travel up to Birmingham and East Midlands to get their aircraft to Bali for their next conference on Net Zero. Bloody hell, you sound almost as deranged as slon!
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