Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

I'm convinced you are on another planet Fred, EM will never be PM !

I can't see the public going to the polls and choosing Miliband to be their leader. It is going to be another Kinnock moment. Can anyone in their right mind see Miliband on the world stage meeting with world leaders? It is going to look like a scene from a Mr Bean film with him being ignored by one Prime Minister or President after another.

"Mr Putin, do you like my teddy bear friend?".

Labour races into seven-point lead as ratings for Nigel Farage show sharp fall
Observer/Opinium poll puts Labour on 36%, with the Tories on 29% and Ukip down three points to 16%21/12/2014


The figures provide a welcome boost for Labour and its leader, Ed Miliband. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty

Labour has opened up a seven-point lead over the Conservatives in the latest Opinium/Observer poll, which also shows a sharp fall in the personal approval ratings for the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage.

The survey will be a boost for Labour and its leader, Ed Miliband, who has endured a torrid time since the autumn conference season as the political parties prepare to enter a general election year.

It is the second poll in a week showing that the Tories have lost ground since chancellor George Osborne’s autumn statement earlier this month, in which he spelled out the need for several more years of deep cuts to public spending.

Labour has opened up a seven-point lead over the Conservatives in the latest Opinium/Observer poll, which also shows a sharp fall in the personal approval ratings for the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage.

The survey will be a boost for Labour and its leader, Ed Miliband, who has endured a torrid time since the autumn conference season as the political parties prepare to enter a general election year.

It is the second poll in a week showing that the Tories have lost ground since chancellor George Osborne’s autumn statement earlier this month, in which he spelled out the need for several more years of deep cuts to public spending.

The Opinium survey will also be worrying for Farage, as it shows his personal ratings diving to a level below those of David Cameron, following a series of controversies, including his public comments about the need for women to be discreet when breastfeeding. Farage’s rating has dropped to -17% (the percentage of voters who approve of his performance minus those who disapprove), a fall of eight points since a fortnight ago and the lowest score recorded for him by Opinium.

Although Cameron still scores best on this measure by some margin, Miliband has narrowed the gap. Cameron’s rating fell by two points to -11%, while Miliband’s improved by three points to -28%. Nick Clegg was on -48%.

Douglas Alexander, chair of Labour’s general election strategy, claimed that the Tories were alienating voters as they were intent on paring back public services. “In the final weeks of this year, the Tories have made a major error by exposing themselves as a party intent on slashing back public services to levels not seen since the 1930s, when we didn’t have the NHS. Theirs is a project motivated by ideology, not necessity,” he said.• Opinium Research carried out an online survey of 1,957 GB adults aged 18+ between 16 and 19 December 2014. Results have been weighted to nationally representative criteria.

Labour lead at 2

Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 19th December -

Con 32%, Lab 34%, LD 6%, UKIP 15%;

Ipsos Mori poll

CON 32 (nc); LAB 29 (nc); LIB DEM 9 (nc); UKIP 13 (-1); GREEN 9 (+2)

Goldfinger being economical with the truth as per usual;

Latest YouGov and Opinium polls
21 DEC 2014
We’ve almost arrived at the Christmas break. Today we have new polls from Opinium (their last of the year) and YouGov (their penultimate of the year – there is one more to come on Monday night). I’m not sure when Populus put out their final poll of the year, and Survation have a Scottish poll being published next week, but that should be it for the year.
Topline figures for today’s two polls are:
Opinium/Observer – CON 29%(nc), LAB 36%(+2), LDEM 6%(nc), UKIP 16%(-3), GRN 5% (tabs)
YouGov/Sunday Times – CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 8% (tabs)

The Observer write up of the poll, incidentally, is particularly poor, or at least, contains one particularly poor sentence. Toby Helm writes “It is the second poll in a week showing that the Tories have lost ground since chancellor George Osborne’s autumn statement earlier this month”. Now, I have long whined about newspapers treating only their own poll as being meaningful and pretending others don’t exist, so well done for putting a poll in context… but it’s a rather extreme case of cherry-picking context to create a narrative that doesn’t exist.
The Opinium poll is the second one this week to show Labour’s lead growing, in fact it’s the third as there was also TNS. But there were also rather a lot of other polls that didn’t… there were another ten polls who the Observer has chosen not to mention. There was an Ipsos MORI poll this week (no change in lead), a ComRes phone poll this week (no change in lead), a ComRes online poll last weekend (shrinking Labour lead), two Populus polls (who have shown smaller Labour leads in their four post-Autumn Statement polls than their four before the statement) and five YouGov polls (whose post-Autumn statement polls have shown essentially the same Labour lead as those before). Lord Ashcroft hasn’t polled this week, he’s already finished for the year, but his post Autumn Statement poll had Labour’s lead down one point. As you can see, there as as many polls showing Labour’s lead falling post Autumn Statement as rising, and overall I expect what we’re seeing is a simple case of normal random sample variation. Taking a crude average of the Labour leads in November would give you an average lead of 1.6 points, take a crude average of the polls in December so far gives you an average Labour lead of 1.6 points.
There’s always a temptation to see narratives in polls, to ignore those showing no movement, latch onto those showing exciting looking changes and build an explanation and a story around them. It’s normally wrong to do so.

UK loses bid to opt out of benefits deal with Turkey:

Ruling could lead to higher spending on welfare payments and pensions for immigrants

Britain could be forced to pay benefits to more Turkish migrants

UK lost yet another EU court case, giving Turkish workers full EU rights
MPs feared 'power grab' could make Britain more attractive for migrants

By Mail on Sunday Reporter

Published: 00:25, 21 December 2014 | Updated: 08:13, 21 December 2014


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2882218/UK-loses-bid-opt-benefits-deal-Turkey-Ruling-lead-higher-spending-welfare-payments-pensions-immigrants.html



But in a ruling quietly announced last week, Britain lost the case and was told by judges at Europe’s highest court it could not opt out.

the germans will be pleased, as i think they have more turkish gastarbeite than any other country in europe ..... one of the resasons of course why there is so much resentment there, and in NL of course

the french have long been pretty right wing in their mentality, whatever the voting figures may show, so their "hate" is focussed on the north african immigrants

Fury as May announces she’ll disband child sex abuse inquiry panel – Exaro News

Home Secretary Theresa May is to disband the panel for the overarching inquiry into child sex abuse, according to Exaro News.
She wrote to each member of the panel at the end of last week to say that she is considering turning it into a statutory inquiry, or setting up a fresh statutory inquiry or a Royal Commission.

But her move has prompted fury among panel members. They are urging May to convert the inquiry to statutory status and keep the current panel.

You can read the rest of the article on the Exaro News website.

It seems Theresa May is saying she’ll get rid of the panel’s members in response to concerns about those members, raised by abuse survivors – but panel members have accused her of listening to a vocal minority set against the inquiry instead of the majority of those who have survived abuse.

Who could this minority be?

Well, in a leaked letter to Theresa May, panel member Sharon Evans states: “I was… informed by three men who did not know each other and all who described themselves as having no political axe to grind, that a senior politician has been having sex with young boys and his marriage is a sham.”

Hmm.

The letter below..........

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5438/theresa-may-to-scrap-panel-for-inquiry-into-child-sex-abuse

One heck of a cover up by the Tories, now why would that be!!!!!!!!!!!!

Part of an article published by a barrister last month;


"Exaro News is playing a dangerous game with its paedophile murder story
Exaro News has been drip feeding allegations and rumours of a paedophile sex ring in high places for many months."

http://barristerblogger.com/2014/11/16/exaro-news-playing-dangerous-game-paedophile-murder-story/

Why anybody Red, Blue, Green etc can get so excited about these Mickey Mouse polls so early in the game is beyond me. All the parties have an awful lot of work to do to convince the vast majority of people to even vote. Maybe be more convincing and actually mean anything four weeks before the General Election. Present polls are as accurate as GF, Mike740, mick tarquin kipper etc 99% claim success re trading. :0)

Agreed Chris, Labour were well ahead in most polls in the run up to the last GE until Gordon Broon screwed everything up at the last minute!

It's quite astonishing that Exaro is publishing all this information while a police investigation is still ongoing. "Nick", who has been making most of these serious allegations has a 20 year history of mental health problems.

Db4,

How far can you trace yours back?

Kinnock was ahead in the polls a few days before he lost badly. But then, of course, Michael Foot was always behind and gave Maggie a very nice majority and the biggest Labour defeat for 50 years. It was a 145 seat defeat. His socialist manifesto was called, 'the longest suicide note in history'. The comment was made by Labour Party MP Gerald Kaufman. It shows you what the public think of socialism.