next labour leader if you could vote/are voting

ED BALLS

I know nothing about him but would vote for that name

Sadly, that's the only good thing about him apart from this photo:

http://i44.tinypic.com/28k1nxi.jpg

dan otm

At least if he wins, we could have Balls debating a penis every week.

any of them that isn't a woman tbh

CAMERON CRUSHES BALLS

PARTY SAYS YES TO BALLS

I mean, I can see Dan's point.

Surely we can enter the British mindset enough to try for "Cameron Licks Balls"

That's just a rumour

surely there's a wealth of polling related heds here?

MPS FRET AFTER BALLS DIP

BALLS RISE AFTER NOVEMBER EXPOSURE

you've got a subject verb disagreement in that second one but yes v good tick

rise is a noun!

oh shit

You made a Balls of that

WHIP "CRAZY ABOUT" BALLS

GAP OPENS FOR BALLS

BALLS IN CAMERONS MOUTH DUE TO PARLIAMENTARY TEABAGGING--LITERAL BALLS--ED BALLS BALLS

BALLS ON BALLS: ARE YOU TRYING TO ASK ME ABOUT MY ACTUAL TESTICLES, I'M AFRAID I DON'T UNDERSTAND

BALLS: "I'M KNACKERED"

BALLS SQUEEZED BY MILIBAND BROTHERS

BALLS IN VICE SCANDAL

BALLS TO THE LOT OF YOU

Leader of the Opposition sends nation Xmas Greetings

BALLS TALKS BALLS

SUPPORT FOR BALLS

BALLS: ON THE LINE

BALLS BALLS UP

BALLS: IN THE AIR

BALLS EXPOSED

BALLS SUPPORT FALLS IN SWING SEAT

ED BALLS HEADS BALLS

BALLS: DROP IN MARGINALS

BALLS TAKES A KICKING

BALLS SACKED

PARTY SWAP: BLUE BALLS?

it's like we've been biding our time, waiting to break out our balls gags

MEET BALLS

BALLS UNDER PRESSURE

BALLS: "STICK TOGETHER"

BALLS BUSTED

BALLS STUCK IN CABINET

BALLS SLAMMED BY PRESS

or even better...

BALLS SLAMMED IN PRESS

BALLS HAMMERED

PM BLINDSIDED BY BALLS ERUPTION

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Thank you, Diane Abbott:

"One of the things that made me run was hearing candidate after candidate saying that immigration lost us the election. Rather than wringing our hands about the white working class and immigration, we need to deal with the underlying issues that make white and black people hostile to immigration; things like housing and job security. We need to be careful about scapegoating immigrants in a recession. We know where that leads."

OTM Diane. Immigration was virtually the first thing mentioned by both E. Milliband & Burnham.

PICKLES ALL OVER BALLS

(Dan there is a prominent Conservative named Eric Pickles. And he is truly a Big Citizen.)

This is the big reason lefty families wind up going private

Well I don't have kids but you're a hypocrite to me.

Also I just don't get why Milliband Minor and Burnham and the like are
banging on about immigration - is there actual proof that this issue, in particular, caused Labour to lose support among their core supporters?

BALLS BIGGER THAN PICKLES

PICKLES BALLS BALLS PICKLES

BALLS CAUGHT

duh BALLS CAUGHT BY PICKLES

EMERGENCY MEASURES REVEAL BALLS DEFICIT

woah i didn't even know david lammy was black

He's not very good though. He used to go out with June Sarpong, right? Can you imagine having to listen that voice every day?

xxxp In the 2 seats where the BNP were a significant threat (Barking and Dagenham, one of the Stoke constituencies) Labour actually did v. well, to the extent of wiping out the 12 BNP local council seats in the former area.

So, no.

BALLS BLOCKS QUEENS SPEECH

BALLS UP IN POLLS

COMMONS SENSATION: PICKLES TICKLES BALLS

(and I say this as a librarian!)

ukilxor librarians represent!
(I am not a librarian, I just work for a library, but still)

nuff respect to the library massive!

David Lammy has always struck me as one of those dreadful watercarrying New Lab figures, a bit like Ben Bradshaw. Obama he aint.

Big Society it up for the library massive!

Lammy appeared on the British TV programme Mastermind over Christmas 2008. He scored 8 points on his specialist subject, Muhammad Ali, and performed poorly in the general knowledge round, gaining a total of 13 points.

poor show tbh

david lamey

Where do you get off calling me a hypocrite? I'm the very proud product of a state secondary education! I am just not so rigid I can't have sympathy for parents who go private as a *second* or even third choice (and I can't stand parents who would never deign to have their precious babies mixing with the stinky poor). Seriously, this is how very dare you territory and I'm not interested in further exchange about it because we obviously disagree, and you made it uncharacteristically personal.

In certain Northern constituencies there is a lot of racial resentment coalesced around immigration - what are these guys supposed to do with a gazillion people who think like that woman in Rochdale when there is no acceptable way to label them as bamboozled idiots? There are certain opinions which I feel people are just not entitled to maintain, and misinformed bigot shit about immigration is top of the list.

SMH at David Lammy; June Sarpong is the cousin of a friend and she is in America, seemingly involved with batshits like Alex Jones.

Crossed wires, I didn't call you a hypocrite, Suzy.

lefty families wind up going private

That's who I meant but can understand the confusion

In certain Northern constituencies there is a lot of racial resentment coalesced around immigration

Well, not just Northern, let's be fair about this. I'm still not convinced that Labour actually lost that many votes as a direct result of grumbles over immigration - in these Northern towns or elsewhere.

Yeah me neither.

i don't think it's 'racial' actually, as in the rochdale woman

It just seems to be a knee jerk reaction, unfortunately, for some people, when they have a microphone stuck under their noses and asked what their main concerns are, to say, "What about all these immigrants, where are they flocking from?" and the like. Whenever they interview students, they always say "I'm concerned about tuition fees", but is that really at the forefront of their thoughts in the ballot box?

This is the big reason lefty families wind up going private - they always give the system a chance to accommodate them before that happens.

ha i wdn't be so sure

It's anecdotal but so many of the private school grads I know (especially from North London private day schools) tried to get places in state schools before they ever considered shelling out for the fees to go private.

That's the thing - bigotwhinge might feature at doorsteps, surgeries, and photo ops - but it doesn't translate to a ballot box protest in 'real' elections. I cited Northern constituencies because Burnham and Milliband are MPs for depressed post-industrial places up there, and that is what they'd get on walkabout. I'd like immigrants to be properly integrated, to not be accidental undercutters of wages because nobody will communicate with them the going rate of job X for the benefit of *all* workers and for employers to be penalized harshly if they divide and rule in this manner. Also, when employment law is being rejigged continuously to make it easier for companies to casualize or use agencies, people get insecure and not OH JOY FLEXIBILITY. The ire of vox pop bigots is ALWAYS pointed in the wrong direction.

I cited Northern constituencies because Burnham and Milliband are MPs for depressed post-industrial places up there, and that is what they'd get on walkabout

No doubt, but no need to pander to people flapping their gums

I know! Just think, if we didn't pander to bigoty gum-flappers this country would be kind of awesome - I'm continually inspired by the pockets of Britain where this is not the case.

Also I just don't get why Milliband Minor and Burnham and the like are
banging on about immigration - is there actual proof that this issue, in particular, caused Labour to lose support among their core supporters?

...

xxxp In the 2 seats where the BNP were a significant threat (Barking and Dagenham, one of the Stoke constituencies) Labour actually did v. well, to the extent of wiping out the 12 BNP local council seats in the former area.

So, no.

Also in Stoke Tristan Hunt won the seat despite supposed aforementioned racial stuff and the fact that the Labour Party rather dumped Tristan on them. His majority went down but at the expense of the tories and libdems - BNP used one of their big guns who managed to get 2500 votes but still only fractionally more than the previous election. In Barking Hodge played a blinder of an election by all accounts. Maybe instead of grandstanding Milibrand and Burnham should ask her how she did it?

think there is a massive difference from neo-nazis and "people with issues around immigration"

Well, totally.
And another thing, it really does just sound like hot air from them - it's like the Thatcher quote I never tire of repeating - "We MUST do SOMETHING about those inner cities". Yeah, OK, but what?

There's also a difference between "people with issues around immigration" and "people who, when prompted, have the occasional, usually ill-informed, whinge about it but it's not the be-all and end-all when you get right down to it"

I'd like immigrants to be properly integrated, to not be accidental undercutters of wages because nobody will communicate with them the going rate of job X for the benefit of *all* workers and for employers to be penalized harshly if they divide and rule in this manner.

the immigrants are only there to do shit jobs for crap wages

If you're happy to accept that certain people are second-class citizens in your area - and that sit jobs for crap wages are fine for them, but not for you - then you are doomed to join them.

shit not sit, obv.

s[h]it jobs for crap wages are fine for them, but not for you

don't some of the long term unemployed in those northern towns think like that? ppl who had proper jobs in heavy industry etc and don't want to work in deskilled/routinized service sector serfdom

a thatcherite solution is to find ppl who will allow themselves to be exploited, hence the large reserve of legal/illegal (but tacitly tolerated) labour

capital paves the way and the indigent follow, however squalid that may be

But has there even been that much recent immigration to these "Northern towns"?

there's obv too much for the gilian duffy types

as his been observed the places with the worst hostility to immigrants are volkisch bnp havens which are prob 95%+ white british eg stoke

his=has

Indeed (xp). Seems to me large-scale recent immigration seems to be more a phenomenon in other areas of England and not in the post-industrial North which, by definition, doesn't have any industry

what was it you said about staffordshire being some sort of ur-Britain w/ bull terriers and racism

Keep thinking of Eastern European professionals and graduates working all the hours God sends picking asparagus in Cambridgeshire or some other leafy hellhole

i think there's still a fair bit of immigration to the north -- e. europeans only account for about a third of immigration iirc

there's a lot of that, but if the local tebbitt types don't like the furriners in the village they'll still vote conservative so it's harder to discern electorally xp

what was it you said about staffordshire being some sort of ur-Britain w/ bull terriers and racism

― Dan, Dan, DARRAGH (acoleuthic), Friday, 21 May 2010 14:55 (14 minutes ago)

that's probably unfair but it does sound like a rly shit place

The motto of Stoke-on-Trent is Vis Unita Fortior which can be translated as: United Strength is Stronger, or Strength United is the More Powerful or A United Force is Stronger.[8]

twinned w/ salo republic innit

the crime stats are kinda grim too, around national average for property crimes but way ahead of avg for violent crimes and way way ahead for sexual crimes

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ILX BALLS DEEP INTO BALLS

wtf btw

Ed Miliband's remarks on Iraq mark him out from his brother, David, and Andy Burnham, both candidates in the leadership contest who voted for the war. Ed Miliband was living in the US and was not yet an MP at the time. "I was pretty clear at the time that I thought there needs to be more due process here," he said.

"As we all know, the basis for going to war was on the basis of Saddam's threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction and therefore that is why I felt the weapons inspectors should have been given more time to find out whether he had those weapons, and Hans Blix – the head of the UN weapons inspectorate – was saying that he wanted to be given more time. The basis for going to war was the threat that he posed.

this is some consolation, even if one wonders whether he'd have opposed it had he been in parliament

voted for him, he seems to have a little more about him than his weakminded and colourless brother