Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 3, 2024 19:43:57 GMT
If you pitched a novel with a character having something like Alan Amos's political career, the editor would suggest it was totally implausible and should be rewritten to be believable. There may be a case for some of us here who are a bit more creatively minded to work on a script, just to see.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 3, 2024 13:24:24 GMT
Has there ever been a case of a council entirely consisting of independents before? Hundreds Now if we're going back to the old RDCs, I think there were a few, here and there, that never even had contested elections.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 3, 2024 12:43:35 GMT
I suppose 'Dunbobbin' is an apt name for a Police Commissioner.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 3, 2024 12:38:32 GMT
Has there ever been a case of a council entirely consisting of independents before? Presumably meaning since 1974? Yes, but usually in very rural areas.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 3, 2024 1:17:17 GMT
It would seem that voters don't like it when rubbish piles up in the street.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 3, 2024 0:19:44 GMT
Is this the most stable council in the country? I can't remember a seat changing hands here since the 90s. Someone should do an investigation to see if they just get the votes out of storage each time.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Oxford
May 2, 2024 15:22:22 GMT
Post by Sibboleth on May 2, 2024 15:22:22 GMT
The underlying issue was that the County Boroughs did not deal as well as the County Councils (the London County Council very much included here) with the postwar deal between central and local government: more powers and more funding in exchange for more responsibilities and fewer freedoms. This was not helped by the fact that the population criteria for the establishment of a county borough was set at a level that was rather stupidly low, so a lot were just not capable. This is why you had Crossman's bungled mergers in the mid 60s. Of course the other issue was that the members of some of the various district councils (which were very weak and deliberately so) did not like their functional role as rate-collectors for the County Councils and wanted power, and rather a lot of these people were senior members of various Conservative Associations.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on May 1, 2024 15:09:05 GMT
Well, thank you for confirming that you don't follow cricket. There is an alternative reality in which, maybe, he might have been,* but not this one. *Though as the disastrous candidacy of Ted Dexter at Cardiff South East in 1964 reminds us: not necessarily.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 29, 2024 22:55:51 GMT
It was part of three local authorities for a time (along with Essex CC), namely Chigwell UD, Dagenham MB, and Ilford MB.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 29, 2024 19:41:40 GMT
Just take your f ucking ADHD medication and log off.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 23:12:42 GMT
I don't know, a fairly rural constituency electing the son of a former Director General of the National Trust doesn't seem that odd. Many things depend on perspective.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Stone
Apr 28, 2024 19:31:48 GMT
Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 19:31:48 GMT
While I'm all in favour of Cash publicly humiliating himself on national television for no real purpose, it would be a clear case of elder abuse and, as such, would be quite immoral.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 18:38:13 GMT
The only reference i can find is from May 1966 when the unlikely combination of Ray Fletcher (Ilkeston 1964-83) and Christopher Mayhew (Woolwich East 1951-74, and previously South Norfolk 1945-5) got together and apparently tried to get Labour MPs to indulge in "fewer slogans and a more reasoned approach to Foreign Affairs". Good luck with that, lads. [/div][/quote] That's interesting. The group I mentioned was formed in response to the 'Keep Left' group of the early 50s. It really would be Peak Labour Party to have had multiple 'Keep Calm' groups over the years, none of which managed to calm anyone down the slightest.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 18:35:23 GMT
What is a 'proper' Conservative anyway? I don't think anyone here actually sees the world as, say, F.E. Smith did, do they? It's every bit as diluted and diminished a political tradition as liberalism and socialism.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 18:16:59 GMT
Who besides Tam Dalyell were memebrs of the "Keep Calm Group of Labour MPs"? Mellish was one of the better known names. It was a sort of anti-factionalism grouping on the centre-right of the PLP in the 50s and 60s.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 18:15:14 GMT
In all seriousness though, Wellbeloved did a huge amount of good work over organ transplantation after he lost his seat in 1983. A curious fact is that quite a few otherwise... er... difficult... MPs took an interest in the subject: Dalyell himself did, as did Sir Gerald Nabarro (though there were surgeons who thought his assistance was not always entirely helpful).
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 17:38:38 GMT
Jon Silkin and Bob Mellish. Probably among others... Well as those two names alone indicate, anyone who was a Labour whip and at least reasonably capable of wit during the years when Wellbeloved was an MP...
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 14:28:08 GMT
Bit of an odd fantasy to have. In any case, this isn't the sort of issue we have referendums on in this country and the salience of the issue has faded considerably over time: there used to be regular debates about it in Parliament and now there are not. As an issue with the public it became quite a complicated one from the 1950s onwards, with a lot of people who supported the idea of it in theory but had doubts about its application after certain notorious miscarriages of justice, thus the lack of any meaningful political backlash to abolition when it won the day.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 14:24:22 GMT
Margins have dropped recently (though have still been solid) but the Shimane district that has just been lost by a wide margin used to be one of the very safest LDP seats in all Japan.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 15,318
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 28, 2024 14:06:33 GMT
Crosspost: Wasting five minutes of my Sunday to check the detailed tables, and I notice that there's no SES weighting of any kind at all, and that combination is certainly curious. True of their polls for the other contests as well. I'm not sure quite what they're actually measuring. I.e. the above in addition to no sub-regional weighting and a heavy turnout weight.
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