Ö÷²¥´óÐã

shouldn' the above read 'Labour proposed resurrection strategy'? as for how to cover Wendy Alexander's deathbed conversion
to the case for a referendum on Scottish
independence .... the date has been set
by the SNP for 2010. What is perhaps an
interesting aspect of Wendy's panicking
attempt to bring this forward to an early
date before a head of steam builds up is
that this could easily back-fire - a point
that Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory
leader has been making all day. What
is also quite extraordinary is that this
U-turn by Labour followed her launch
of the Calman commission last week
to re-examine devolution. Wendy has
insisted up to now that independence
is to be kept off that agenda and this
U-turn on a referendum will now be of
huge embarrassment to not just her
Tory allies in 'The Wendy Commission'
and to the commission's members but
also and particularly to the Lib-Dems
in Scotland whose principal reason
for avoiding a coalition with the SNP
was that they refused to agree to a
referendum on independence! She
is up the creek without a paddle on
this issue - and her poll ratings are
even worse than those of Brown!

What we want in Scotland is A
GENERAL ELECTION so that we
can vote in 20 SNP MPs who can
perhaps hold the balance of power
in a hung parliament at Westminster
in the run-up to 2010 .... Bring it on,
Gordon ......... You have no mandate.

Further analysis of Wendy A's U-turn on an independence referendum from Brian Taylor of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scotland can be found on this blog:

/blogs/thereporters/briantaylor/

Does anyone know if Peter Barron still does his blog ?

Or did Carla's visit render him speechless

Concerned
Tunbridge Wells ..

I WAS GORDON’S DOUBLE

In these days of political 'anything goes' surely the logical next step, after lies, double-speak and magic-money, is for Gordon to be replaced, for all public consumption, by a human double? Indeed, did not the original Stalin do this? (Not sure about Mr Bean – your move Rowan.) And Sadam had a whole swatch of doubles. Tony Blair was, of course, his own double – the authentic one is emerging daily to cries of 'oh dear' from the gullible, who thought the Straight Kind of Guy was real. Watch closely: if Gordon’s smile becomes 'easy' or he does a bit of knock-about comedy, check for birth-marks; he has been replaced.

I was saddened by Andrew Marr's sycophantic treatment of Gordon Brown with his touchy feely questions on Sunday. It was a joke and a complete waste of taxpayers money. 'How are you feeling Gordon?'
I got the impression an editor shouted down Andrew's ear to get some proper questions because at the end of 25 minutes of interviewing we finally got to the 10p tax question and leadership.
A suggestion for Jeremy. If a Labour politician mentions the word listening ask about three things; 10p tax, EU referendum and 42 days detention. Pause for the waffle then ask how that is listening - although listening doesn't actually mean acting on it....
As for resurrection; polly is dead, it is no more, it is a dead parrot.

'Confused - You Will Be As Labour Muddies The Waters' The Herald's Political Editor Mr
Douglas Fraser on Wendy Alexander's offer of a referendum on Scottish Independence
- Yes or No - without clearing it with Gordon.

Gordon just doesn't get it. He reminds me of Col Blimp and is at a complete loss as to why things are imploding around him. To fiddle around with bin tax is just an excercise to try and convince a suspicious electorate that he is on top of things when the country is crying out for leadership not soundbites.An announcement that he was going to address the problem of the lowest paid getting in cash anything owed to them over the ten pence fiasco would be a start. A date for the troops coming home would be another step to sanity and try getting some voices around the table who DONT agree with him as the yes men have got him into mess he now finds himself. It will require a complete and utter character change, either that or a change of government.

Could we perhaps also have an urgent update from Mark Urban about the gag
on reporting events concerning Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert?

Midnight Pantsman (3)

Yes, I'll be back. I have actually blogged since Carla - about the new blog.

Peter

Does the Labour leadership realise that each time they field Hazel Blears on Newsnight they lose even more credibility as a listening Government? She doesn't listen to the questions let alone answer them. Her motor mouth simply drives on regardless, uttering meaningless political cliches that persuade no-one.

He's back at last!!!! The epic line of the night with Hazel Blears "Your leader is a loser, isn't he?" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Welcome back Jeremy :-)

GOOD SHIP LOLLYPOP

Hazel is a small round nut who is totally crackers. Her nightly demonstrations of the moral, intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of party politics are invaluable. Blears will one day be recognised as having done more to awaken the electorate than any other; living or dead. Hazel has made me realise that Labour will succeed because their abject failure will cause the spotlight to be thrown on non-existent Conservative policy. (Or was that Harriet or Yvette?) Pure genius or what?

"we need someone to take some flak on Newsnight....is Cooper available??? okey...dispatch Blears".

Hazal Blears AKA comical Ali has something
in her that i wish i could bottle, i could make a fortune. In the face of heavyweight adversity-this labour underweight still pinches herself every morning for somehow finding herself in a high and dizzy position of cabinet minister in OUR Govt. She still genuinely believes that everything is okey in the nulabour camp... a camp in which some think Miliband or Ed Balls could be a successor to Brown. Are they really that short of skillful political operators who have real leadership potential?..Hain maybe? or Jack Straw? who have they got to save them from this politically entrenched misery...Frank Field towers above the rest, but thats just relative.. 'in the land of the blind the one eyed man would be king' if you will.

Paxman's smelling blood and is on a roll with kicking Labour where it hurts; although that's not too hard to do these days, and whilst Hazel Blears did not feel the blows from Paxman herself as she is somehow immune, the party faithful and her work colleagues watching Newsnight will yet again be reminded that they are finished as a serious govt in the eyes of the electorate and their demise will be long and painful to witness with the inevitable resignation of Brown in the not to far distant future with no one worthy, willing or capable to take the leadership mantle. Dark days, months and even probably years ahead for Labour for sure

Burma:

I am hoping that the generals in Burma allows for international authorities to go into Burma and help the people there....

U.S. Primary: when i am typing this Obama has won North Carolina and the count in Indiana is not be formalized.......

'9. At 10:46 pm on 06 May 2008, PeterBarron wrote:

Yes, I'll be back. I have actually blogged since Carla - about the new blog.'

Super. Any chance of an answer (or pointing to where one was if I missed it) to Chloe-F's concerns on data security:

From No 25 on the 18th April -

/blogs/newsnight/2008/04/blogging_a_new_era.html

I guess the live link is still not an option either? I suppose it's all still settling in, having seen some of the premoderated stuff that was allowed through and up which seemed to break every rule (can't speak for the stuff premoderated out of course, but it does seem interpretation is quite 'creative').

I feel a bit like JP asking over and over, but as it was offered it would be nice to know. Or are we in an era of 'listening but not hearing' Hoonian selectivity?

ps: Like Barrie, I also miss the preview.

Despite the seriousness of the emergency in Burma the most important item for me was on uncertainty in climate models.

As a motivator, compare how many people are going to die because of the cyclone and how many more because of the vast increase in world food prices. And that increase has a great deal to do with the production of biofuel rather than food by massive growers like the USA and Brasil, as Newsnight did well to show recently. And the whole biofuel thing has been justified on the back of the computer models that the folks at the Hadley Centre and elsewhere were so proud to show us last night.

The whole of global warming 'science' is based on these models. The science has inverted commas. By that you know that this software engineer of 28 years isn't quite convinced.

So, although Roger Harrabim mostly stayed within IPCC orthodoxy, very well done to him for pointing to the gaps - clouds and carbon cycle included. With so many 'leading scientists' saying that there's a certain problem we must take drastic action to mitigate - and the biofuel disaster certainly counts as drastic in my book and that of Professor Paul Collier's Bottom Billion who cannot afford to pay more - you'd assume that a little lack of being able to model clouds and the carbon cycle doesn't amount to much.

But it does. It amounts to the fact that the models are worthless as predictors.

As a simple example from a week ago, do all the IPCC scientists agree that the average annual global temperature is not in fact going to rise again until 2015? That's what Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany now thinks according to the Telegraph last week:



The IPCC don't agree. Flat temperature from 1998 to now (as has happened) and from now to 2015 is not what we were being sold in 1998. But one team of experts says that it's now very likely, due to some 'natural variations' they've just discovered that are not, presumably, reflected in the models.

Why didn't we know that there was going to be 17 years of no global warming at all in 1998?

We didn't know. And we don't know now. But we don't know very much, that's the point. And all the computer hardware power in the world isn't going to make the difference, until the system being modeled - the incredibly complex biosphere and climate - is well enough understood. And you know what, we only know that we arrived at sufficient understanding when the models start to make accurate predictions, decade in, decade out. Not like this decade (and possibly the next), in other words.

But by then it will be too late, the cry goes up.

Are you sure of that? If so, how?

Sure enough to wreck the lives of billions through massively higher food prices obviously. And how much more are we prepared to pay in other peoples' lives when we don't have a clue what we're talking about?

rdake98 #16 has it right. I am re-posting this, from the other thread, in support.

SCIENCE AND CLIMATE-SCIENCE

There is a lamentable lack of rigour and a laughable level of humbug in climate 'science'. Now that politics, obscene wealth, commerce, arms and global chicanery are all interwoven, such that we can't even have a war without finding out that we are fighting ourselves, three times removed, the underlying (I stress lying) forces governing climate-science are as chaotic as the underlying forces of climate itself.
There is good science, over half a century old, reported on the web, that throws a whole different light on earth's climate; indeed, on earth itself as a member of this solar system. There is no truth out there, but there IS good science to 'give the lie'.

Agreed with Barrie (#17) that the warming mess points to wider systemic problems. But, retreating from the complexity of all that to the simplicity of a negro spiritual I was taught at school:

Just take one brick from Satan's wall
(I'm a gonna serve God till I die)
Satan's wall is gonna tumble and fall
(I'm a gonna serve God till I die)

The biofuels debacle is clearly causing many to doubt the received wisdom in these areas. Not before time. My advice to Newsnight is to leave the so-called scientists alone until they have some verifiable science to present but to get deep into the work of Professor Paul Collier on the bottom billion. With no science at all - but a lot of groundbreaking econometrics - he'll tell you the right answer on biofuels and a whole lot else. If in doubt, read my interview with Collier this month in Sublime Magazine, the ethical lifestyle magazine. They're on the web at www.sublimemagazine.com and in the better kinds of shop.

Richard Drake

Hi JunkkMale #15 - most grateful for your repeated referencing but unfortunately you're barking up the wrong tree... Blog problems aren't under NN's control and no amount of pestering Il Barone, however enjoyable that may be, will get the desired answers, let alone changes. You can give the blogging techs some direct feedback and ask them to contact you with further research (etc) here, but don't hold your breath, they get far to much junk in order to answer every single complaint:

/blogs/contact.shtml

I know from experience that these issues can be complicated - it's not a matter of just adding and 's' to the http - it is a trial, so let's be patient and see how things develop. Bear in mind it is working *much* better than it used to..

Regards,
Cloe

Dear Chloe-F,

Thanks for your reply on behalf of Mr. Barron.

19. At 4:25 pm on 08 May 2008, Cloe_F wrote: Blog problems aren't under NN's control and ... will [not] get the desired answers

Oh, sorry. I must have misunderstood the meaning of the reply (and definition of 'shortly') here:

/blogs/newsnight/2008/04/blogging_a_new_era.html

'5. At 12:42 pm on 22 Apr 2008, PeterBarron wrote: Cloe F (22)__I'm checking your points about privay with the team who have been developing the blog and will report back shortly.'_

Just as now I, and a few others, are wondering if the promised answers from Mr. Miliband the day after his interview will be appearing, and as this date has passed if so where and when.

Sorry if that seems like 'pestering'. It's just that if things are written by a news programme with a record of (and some pride in) repeated attempts to get answers, it would seem best to practice what is preached. Or, if there are errors, delays, etc, explain them in a timely manner. Would they cut their interviewees such slack as you suggest? Our input was requested, after all. You input a valid enough point to get the reply above... I am still keen to hear the follow up.

It would be a pity if key issues remained left floating simply by no longer being 'of the moment'. Or that gentle reminders that things remain that way - after a few weeks -get called 'pestering'. I'm sure many politicians would love to see that notion embraced if they could.

Oh dear, the curse of Cloe has struck again...

Junkmale #20 - I was merely trying to point you towards the source of the kind of feedback you were looking for, that's all. I enjoy reading this blog (and, I noticed, your own), notably because many bloggers at least try to keep the beep and anyone who appears on it on their toes..

Being labelled a 'pesterer' is a compliment in my trade (public sector audit) - it means you're getting very close to the heart of the matter and you're doing your job... And trust me, I don't cut them any slack - to the point of being asked to leave ministries and even getting chucked out of a country all together...

So, by all means, keep pestering, posting, blogging, whatever term is acceptable.

Cloe... abject apologies.

I misunderstood your intention. And your provenance.

As you'll have gathered there is a tendency on the part of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, and especially the news editors, on occasion to... how to put it... 'not do as one would have done'. And they can frequently simply ignore stuff that is not deemed in their interests to be reminded of, or if they do get roused it can be in a more defensive manner.

I also note the latest wheeze, which is the retroactive changing of main text at whim, which can affect how subsequent readers view comments that have been made on the original basis.

I pointed out the pre/post moderation was still erratic at one stage, but while the change was made my post remained unacknowledged, which left it looking plain incorrect. It seems 'feedback' from the 'team' is more likely with those they like or on gossip, than courtesy or simply answering legitimate questions that have been posed, ironically often by invitation.

I find pointing at others a convenient, but unacceptable way of ducking responsibility. This is their blog about their programme, so the association is plainly very intimate. Indeed the fob off to you suggested a level of active interchange. To date, I notice no answer still.

Such as BarrisS and I will certainly seem as 'pestering' (not in a good way:( now the initial posted deadline for Mr. Miliband's replies has been removed, and they have been posted without reference to the initial promise or any reason for the delay.

ps; Sorry, I am having trouble typing straight as I watch the now hilarious Newswatch with another pointless, arrogant blazer telling us that they 'have taken critiques on board' whilst in the same breath smugly asserting that 'only some' had a problem with anything. This was about Jeremy Vine's 'Yee-hah' election moment. Bless.

BURMA:
Why doesn't the international community compelled the country to accept the free
food and necessary items...

BROWN:
It is nice to Tony Blair to help Gordon Brown out in his job.

U.S. PRIMARIES:
Maybe by June the Democrats will have a nominee....

CLIMATE:
The world needs to start worry about the enviroment right now.