Snap uk election?
Apparently Labour have started recruiting people for an election. Has anyone (tnf obviously) heard anything? I thought Labour didn't have enough money to fight one so soon. Whats the minimum warning they have to give parliment before calling an election?
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perhaps a close eye is needed for any upcoming honours
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The queen has to agree to dissolve parliament I guess. But it's theoretically about minimum 2-3 weeks from then to polling day. But I'm assuming the machinery of government would want more notice than that.
I can't see why Brown would want an election now though, unless he thinks there's a horrible downturn around the corner. (And even then, the economy has been so "depoliticised" that I can't see why people would look to Conservative policy to revitalise things. At the moment, it doesn't look like the Tories would have turned into a mean fighting force even with another 12 months, so why bother? Even if he wins then all he might accomplish is shortening his overall tenure as PM. |
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Dante what happened to your blog? is it gone for ever :(
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The posts themselves I've backed up in eight zillion places, the content will outlive me by several centuries I would imagine. |
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If Brown calls an election in the middle of the Conservative conferences, the Tories are ****ed. Nothing will be achieved when people are thinking about elections, they won't have any time to really think about their policies. In fact, if Brown really wants to be a bastard, he should announce an election on Wednesday lunchtime - Cameron's conference speech is scheduled for 2pm. No-one will pay any attention to what he says since the media will completely focus on the calling of the election. Karl Rove would do it. |
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But really? I'd be surprised if (beyond gimmicks) we see anything even marginally interesting from them. The flat rate tax thing might have been a curiousity, but I don't see the support for it, even in the mainstream-right. So beyond immigrant bashing, vague mutterings about helping people back to work and reducing targets/bureaucracy in public services, what have they got? Either way, I was reflecting today how little it would probably matter. The next government will not only face the same issues regardless of who wins, but they'll be dealing with it in fundamentally the same way ("What's that you say...a policy to use the taxation system to incentivise renewable energy supplies? Wow!") The only question (not of much importance as I see it) is who you view as a more competent Chief Exec. |
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As for the flat tax, an examination into it began in Autumn 2005. It seems that they decided that it would have some economic benefits, but that it'd be too difficult to introduce - so instead they're going to look towards simpler taxes and in the long-run, lower taxes. The other Conservative mantras (immigration and the rest of the populist spiel) have been floating around because it's impossible for everyone in the party to resist trotting them out each time an opportunity arises. It's impossible for me to tell you what the Conservatives' policies are right now because, as I said earlier, the conference is there to settle all of the policy debates and reviews that they've been holding. Of course, this has all been done under the assumption that Brown won't hold an election until 2009ish (giving ministers 2 years to learn their briefs and policies inside-out). An election now really screws them over after a lot of hard work. Quote:
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As for Tory policy, while it's possible that they are holding in reserve some genius ideas which will capture the imagination of Britain....well, I remain to be convinced shall we say? Quote:
To take a more mundane example. At the CIH housing conference the Tory housing spokesperson apparently said there was a "housing crisis" in Britain. OK, he was in front of a bunch of housing types, but we're all familiar with the history of the word 'crisis' and that it should be used to describe a vaguely serious problem. Fair enough. I happen to agree up to a point. So what are the Tories solutions to the problem? Quote:
I'm not suggesting Tory policy simply isn't very good...I'm suggesting that good or bad it's seems to suffer chronically from lack of imagination (or intellectual rigour). I oppose the consequences of the right-to-buy legislation in the 80's but at least it demonstrated some will to change Britain. At least it was a genuine change (in terms of scope) to existing policy. Quote:
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I heard about the recruitment too.
Everyone became annoyed with Blair and now the Tories have the heir to Blair, some slight movement towards reducing taxation along with lots of shouting about a referendum. If the Tories win I'll be astonished. |
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I probably wanked a bit too much over the potential for mucking up the Tory conference - but there is a bona fide question about whether or not to go to the polls now. Labour are haunted by the ghost of James Callaghan, who chose not to go to the polls in 1978, suffered the Winter of Discontent and lost to Thatcher the next year. Brown doesn't want to suffer that fate - but then again, he doesn't want to risk losing this election either. If you ask me, Brown's got a better chance of winning an election now (while the Tories are in disarray) than in six months time or eighteen months time (i.e. May 2008 or 2009). Quote:
(I probably should make clear here that I'm an independent - socially liberal and economically confused - just in case anyone wants to start calling me a Tory, which I'm not) Quote:
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To stop furball whipping his cock out, I'm still unsure if the economy is on the downturn - I can't see the current mortgages crisis affecting investment. If anyone wants to argue it is - ideally in detail - go for it, I'd appreciate the arguments.
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Here's what Alan Greenspan had to say. Some guy who predicted the US sub-primes crisis (Christopher Wood) A Time magazine article asking whether or not Britain's economy is slowing down. |
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But thats one of the primary reasons why central banks exist in the first place; objecting to that sort of lending is pretty much objecting to central banks altogether
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I don't have it with me* but in Age of Extremes by Eric Hobsbawm, he refers to an economist who has this economic model that predicts when there will be an economic downturn. Apparantly, this has been pretty accurate so far*** but no-one knows why****.
Someone here has probably heard of him, but I'll look it up *I'm in the library and have no PC in my room** btw, deffeh what did you do about moving to Wales after? ***the book was written in 1994 ****economists know little about the real world *shocker* |
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