More people blame govt for strikes than unions
More people think the government acted “unreasonably” in dealing with strike action than the government, according to YouGov yesterday.
43% of people thought the unions acted “reasonably”, while 46% thought they acted “unreasonably”.
In contrast, only 36% thought the government acted “reasonably”, while 51% thought they acted “unreasonably”.
The government also got more of the blame for strike action (36%) than unions themselves (33%). A further 22% felt they both deserved blame.
The public was equally split (at around 40%) on whether the unions were genuinely concerned by their pensions or just wanted to strike to “oppose the government’s reduction in public spending”.
While support for strikes was in the high 60s among Labour voters, the public broadly opposed the strikes more than they supported them (with teachers getting the most support at 40%, 49% opposed).
Only 28% of people thought PM David Cameron handled the strikes well; 53% thought he handled them badly.
Update: Blogger David Morris delves into the figures a bit more than me, in response to my post.
The Telegraph doesn’t try being a broadsheet when attacking pensions
I’ve read a story in the Telegraph with the headline: “Retired civil servants outnumber those working”.
But how’s this for the sub-head:
Retired civil servants drawing gold-plated taxpayer funded pensions now outnumber those employed in the civil service for the first time.
Poll: Miliband loses support with Labour voters over strikes
Ed Miliband has suffered a drop in support amongst Labout voters for his handling of union strikes, according to YouGov polls last night.
47% of Labour voters thought he handled the strikes badly (roughly the same per cent as Conservative and Libdem voters) while only 24% of Labour voters thought he handled them well (again, roughly the same per cent as Conservative and Libdem voters).
Ed Miliband’s lack of support for union strikes have also hit his overall support amongst Labour voters.
Yesterday’s Yougov poll found that 53% of Labour voters thought he was doing well as Labour leader, down from 57% two weeks ago.
The Orwell Prize, Johann Hari and nicking words
Man writes amazing words. Man wins prize for writing amazing words. We later find out that man’s words are stolen from another man’s book. You may think I’m referring to Johann Hari, but in actual fact this is an account of George Orwell.
It is widely recognised that the plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four (man lives in totalitarian society, has instincts towards rebellion, is encouraged by female companion to write down thoughts of rebellion, system finds the man and woman, brainwashes man into believing he loves the system he lives in) is identical to Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel We, originally published in English in 1924.
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Why Nadine Dorries is indeed pushing abstinence-only education
There is some considerable – and I might also say deliberately contrived – confusion as to the question of whether tory MP Nadine Dorries’ abstinence bill amounts to the promotion of abstinence-only sex education.
Dorries and her supporters claim that she isn’t pushing abstinence-only sex education and, of course, use this claim to deflect criticism based on the well-documented evidence of the abject failure of abstinence-only programmes in the United States.
To understand why, we need first to be clear about what is actually included in the National Curriculum under sex education as a mandatory element – and everything we need to know is to be found in the Science curriculum.
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Should right-wingers hail Lindsay Lohan tweet?
The editor of the Spectator magazine Fraser Nelson tweeted last week
RT@lindsaylohan: Have you seen food and gas prices lately? US$ will soon be worthless if Fed keeps printing money! >> We need her on the MPC
He then added:
I get better economic analysis from Lynsday Lohan than I do from the Scottish Parliament!
And then:
@lindsaylohan makes more sense on economics than @edballsmp. Mind you, same is true for most people on Twitter.
He was followed by right-wing blogger Paul Staines last week who shrieked with joy that a personality with such a economic credibility was endorsing their position.
He fawned on his blog:
In turn Guido cites the noted American actress and legendary redhead bad-girl Lindsay Lohan. She has a manifestly clearer grasp of the inflationary dangers of quantitative easing than David Blanchflower
Not so quick boys.
I know you get excited easily, but you should have paid more attention to the ‘#ad’ hashtag on that tweet.
MSNBC presenter Lawrence O’Donnell last week explained why she tweeted that: it was paid for by the National Inflation Association, a group that “pumps up tiny unknown stocks that deal with gold and silver.”
See the video
Maybe Lindsay Lohan does know more than economists like Danny Blanchflower. But I highly doubt it.
Update: This blogger has more info debunking the NIA.
Is Blue Labour the anti-thesis of New Labour?
Although he never says so directly, Owen Jones’ Chavs shows us the economic base of Blue Labour.
Much of his book is a description of how economic change in the last 30 years – deindustrialisation and the rising power of capital – has destroyed the livings standards and communities of the old working class.
Of course, if your experience of change has been pretty uniformly of change for the worse, then you will come to value tradition, to favour the known over the unknown, and to be sceptical about such change. You will become small-c conservative.
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How the government’s own projection of student debt is badly wrong
contribution by William Cullerne Bown
The new system of tuition fees and student loans has left many potential students and their parents confused and worried. So it is a good thing that the government has stepped in with a new website, Future Students, to explain how it will all work. It is also good that the popular independent website MoneySavingExpert.com has produced its own guide.
Both websites place heavy emphasis on the size of graduates’ monthly repayments, a figure that the ministers David Willetts and Vince Cable also often return to.
It is unfortunate therefore that both websites have produced guidance that is badly misleading and, in the case of Future Students, massively underestimates how much graduates will actually have to pay back each month.
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The liberal ‘modernisers’ at Labour, Libdems and Tories have failed
contribution by Neal Lawson and Prateek Buch
Does a core belief in liberalism unite the leaderships of the three biggest political parties? At the Guardian, Julian Astle recently described a political grouping that transcends party boundaries, united in its core aim to reform public services and, above all, remain in power.
At the same time we read of an “anti- political mood. Could the two be connected; has the modern political race-to-the-centre left voters cold and uninspired?
This ‘alchemy’ of Blairites, Cameroons and Orange Bookers are described as bravely taking on “their parties’ backwoodsmen” and delivered years of, well, what exactly?
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Will Ed Miliband’s looped interview hurt him? I doubt it
Of all the things to complain about on recent events, I’m rather puzzled so much has been made about that interview by Ed Miliband where he responds to four questions with the same answer.
The rationale is simple, and I have little doubt his team mind the interview getting out there.
What does bother me however is the sanctimonious attitude of some broadcast journalists.
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