Not much has changed, it seems, which is a disappointing result for Labour. UKIP has disappeared with most of their votes going Tory.
It's very interesting to look at the results for the boroughs where Renew put up candidates. They've done better where the Tories won, less so in Labour wards, but have dramatically outperformed UKIP and are generally on a par with the Lib Dem votes.
Surely having a Muslim Home Secretary (and him being spoken of as a potential leader) is a great role model for young Muslims, BD? We may disparage bankers after 2008 (and with some justification, given their bail out by the Labour Government) but the fact is, financial services are a major export and huge source of taxes. If a young man or woman of Asian origin works hard, saying it's his or her ambition to go to university and pursue a career in the City of London, should we discourage him or her?
Barnet went Tory, and even the left wing commentators (the pro-Corbyn Rachel Shabbi among them) agree this is the consequence of Corbyn not getting to grips with anti-semitism. Sorry to labour the point, but it's just a fact, Strolls. On the other hand, despite the Windrush debacle, voters did not appear to blame May - indeed, many approve of the tough policy on illegal immigrants. Her hard line on Russia and Syria gassing its citizens seem to have gone down well too
This may put more pressure on May to deliver a clean Brexit, out of the single market and customs union. If she doesn't, disaffected voters will return to UKIP
Labour up 48, Lib Dems 34, conservatives 13... considering it's mostly from UKIP that doesn't look all that great to me for the conservatives
The incumbent Government traditionally gets a kicking in local elections. Labour threw a lot at these elections, and they didn't do anywhere near as well as they were forecasting. Both Labour and Tories gained vote share (admittedly mostly from UKIP for the Tories) but it does seem that the centre-ground protest voters didn't do their usual anti-Government tactical voting in anywhere near the usual numbers. That's why it is actually a better result for the Tories than for Labour, because the tories were expecting a bad night that didn't materialise, and Labour were expecting a champagne party that fell flat.
Can't fault that, however in the media it's portrayed as an absolute disaster, not as good as hoped but far from a disaster
Not a go at you but I tend to distrust "independent" media as such. If there really was a big problem like this (I haven't looked at the link) at the very least I would expect the guardian to pick it up as a very left msm
An obscure Afro-Caribbean newspaper called The Voice was running stories about the Windrush scandal for ages to no effect, before the Guardian picked up on it and gave it wider exposure. There was still no real public outcry until Tory papers like The Sun and The Express ran with it and finally the government decided that they had to do something. Don't assume because something is not in the MSM, it isn't happening.
What's best for the country is not being tied into EU rules over which we have no influence, adjudicated by a court made up solely of EU judges, and for this we pay large amounts of money and are prevented from making trade deals worldwide. Labour's Barry Gardiner was right in his views on such a policy. It's bollocks
agreed but for a story as big as that, i'm still not likely to trust it, just as i can't trust anything coming out of Syria from the BBC, the white helmets or from RT or anything that comes from breitbart. Typically if its something i'm really really interested in, and the source i see it from isn't a known bias or biased from their perspective (or has good past reputation), i will try to find a few sources. Unfortunately, thats the cynic in me
Exactly what rules are these that are imposed on us, not agreed to by UK-elected MEPs and which you disagree with. Just interested to see how many you can list, mate. The European Court of Justice is there simply to ensure EU law is applied in the same way in all EU countries, and settles legal disputes between national governments and EU institution - it has no power on individual cases. The European Court of Human Rights is run by the European Convention on Human Rights, not the EU, and we ain't leaving that jurisdiction. So not sure where you are with that one either... Not so - which I think I said at the time. China's biggest trade partner? Germany. There's NOTHING stopping us making trade deals outside of the EU now, there never has been. I don't mind people thinking that leaving the EU is best for us, but I do mind when the reasons they quote for doing so are incorrect.
I think on this last part, we can do lots of trade with other countries but when we talk about "trade deals" we are talking about setting the import/export tariffs to countries outside of the EU. This is not something UK can negotiate alone i believe.
Actually the China trade thing is a bit misleading. Germany imports more from China than anyone else but exports only rank 5th. Plus the EU impose strict rules on quality and pricing etc on China which allows imports from them.
1. If we remain in the Customs Union after Brexit, we won't have say in any rules made going forward. 2. The European Court of Justice will rule on disputes the UK may have with the EU, but have no judges on the panel. It's like the UK agreeing to a Russian Court adjudicating on any dispute the UK has with Russia. There's a conflict of interest. 3. EU member states cannot enter into trade agreements with third party countries. Such agreements can only be entered into by the EU itself.
I don't understand why you're asking these questions. My point was that the Conservatives promoted him because he was a high flying achiever at Uni and in banking/finance before entering politics. He has moved on from his birth background. In other words, they selected a middle class high flyer because he was "one of us" and not because he is/was a Muslim, or his family were Pakistani immigrants or because he has a brown skin. I suppose the fact he wasn't rejected out of hand just for being the son of an immigrant is progress of a sort in politics.... My final point was nothing to do with Javid specifically. He (and I) both benefitted from the opportunity to transcend the limitations of our backgrounds and have a fair chance to achieve our potential. However, those opportunities were not available to everyone, but rationed somewhat because of cost and the number of places available. For every success story there are dozens of people just as good who could have done just as well but there weren't enough places to enable them to do what they were capable of. They never got the start in the right school or university that would allow them to become Home Secretary. We should strive for better so everyone has that chance.
