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[TD1]

Interesting polling from tonight's by-election, be worth seeing it this holds true.

For reference, this was a Tory MP resigning in disgrace. You would expect that to hurt them, especially among non-traditional Tory voters. Instead we have seen recent gains by the Conservatives from Labour voters in direct opposition to UKIP. British voters are classic tactical voters, more often voting for a majority party they see as keeping out the less-favoured majority parties than voting their honest preferences, so Labour voters voting to keep out UKIP could be a horrific sign for UKIP ever getting a seat.

At the same time it could be argued that UKIP didn't give much of a damn about this, given they just parachuted all their preferred candidates into cushy, no-work (for UKIP anyway) MEP seats and don't much care about their relevant on the Parliamentary stage, so don't care about it at all.

FTFY

[palsch]

Results just came in (after a traditional extended wait while the BBC broadcast was filled with sleep deprived annoyed waffling). Looks like it was an even stronger Tory victory than predicted. Majority 7000+ compared to Farage's projected 2,500. Looks like  Con 45%, UKIP 26%, Lab 18. Only other vaguely interesting part is Lib Dems in a close sixth behind the Greens and a local Independent candidate (reported campaigning against local hospital closures). At least they beat the Bus Pass Elvis party this time.

Expect UKIP spinning a significant swing since the last election, while everyone else talks about how far short of expectations and recent polls they fell. Worrying for Labour, as they should have seen gains in a late term by-election as the opposition to a vaguely unpopular government. Very worrying for the Lib Dems, as they used to be the greatest campaigners in this sort of election and have been beaten out by what amount to three protest candidates however you cut it. The independent and Green results are unlikely to translate, although the Greens might try to play it as their being a viable non-Lib Dem leftist protest party while continuing to be ignored by all media. Best news for the Tories who can use it alongside good recent polls to keep their moral up heading into this last year.

[mainiac]

I'm not exactly surprised the Lib-Dems have had a fall off in support.  Weren't they a massive disappointment to their voting base in acting like a doormat for the conservatives?  I get that compromise is expected but as near as I can tell the Lib-Dems have gotten precisely zero from this coalition and their voters can't be too pleased about that.

[palsch]

It was more the fact of entering the coalition that annoyed a lot of voters. It didn't surprise me all that much to be honest, and I thought the situation had potential at the time. A lot of that potential failed.

For starters, the leadership of the Lib Dems at the time of the election were Orange Bookers; basically left-libertarian types rather than the social democrats who made up the other wing of the party. This roughly aligns with Cameron's own brand of Conservatism, which is generally soft-to-liberal on civil liberties and libertarian on economic matters (in principle). The problems being that the majority of the Tories are far more conservative on social matters and the Lib Dem voters still trend heavily leftist on economic matters, leaving only the leadership of the coalition who actually agreed on matters. It also meant that those Lib Dem leaders where not as ideologically opposed to many Tory austerity policies as their base.

Arguably they have been a liberal influence on what would otherwise be a far more Conservative government. For sure they got a lot of promises in the coalition agreement that were far to the left of the original Tory manifesto. As far as implemented policies, this outlines what they are looking to campaign on. One recent action I've seen is keeping immigration off the table this year to avoid a knee-jerk reactive bill to UKIP successes. They also got the AV referendum which went down in flames and have blocked a raft of other Conservative proposals.

As someone who often votes Lib Dem and tends towards the leftist side of the party, I'm not exactly happy, but I do think that Clegg did what would be expected of someone with his stated views in the position he was put in and hasn't done all that badly. I may have preferred a Lib-Lab coalition in principle, but I'm not sure I would have liked it in practice, particularly if the Brownite faction were still running things in Labour.

I also don't think that anything that happened in 2010 is good for the long-term health of the party. The Lib Dems have always been more of a coalition party between the two major ideological wings, plus more flexible at a local level to better win individual seats and by-elections. Pinning the party to a charismatic national leader was a risky strategy that would only have been worthwhile with far greater national success than they saw. I'm not really sure how the party is going to move forwards now.

[TD1]

So, you like passive-aggressive door mats?

[palsch]

Round my area, it's because they have as much spine as an octopus.

Meh, a lot of accusations of spinelessness are just them not doing things that people wanted.

The leftists tend to call them spineless when they implement coalition or Conservative policies that they broadly or entirely agree with. In particular trade unions tend to call them spineless for not being trade unionists, despite the leadership basically campaigning as libertarians.

The conservatives/libertarians tend to call them spineless when they block or oppose Conservative policies they disagree with, like the NHS reforms.

Which is to say, the references to them being spineless tend to be inherent to their being a junior party in a coalition that a lot of people are unhappy with. I don't think a more proactive or aggressive party would have done much different if they wanted to retain any power in the coalition. The only way to demonstrate more spine I can think of would have been to break the coalition years ago.

[WarRoot]

http://444.hu/2014/06/05/deutsche-telekom-hungarian-government-collude-to-silence-independent-media/
I'm waiting for Merkel to warn Hungary about the importance of freedom of press...

[smjjames]

Russia is trying to claim that Kiev 2014 will be the next Sarajevo 1914 or a Sarajev- like incident, however, given that the outbreak of WWI and what they are referring to is the assassination of the Austrian Archduke, I'm not exactly sure what they are getting at, someone might get assassinated? I really don't see a global war happening (though it might be in the sense that Russia is so damn big), regional, possibly, but not global.

The mention of Sarajevo brings to mind 1994 Sarajevo (during the Bosinan war) and the Siege of Sarajevo rather than any connection to assassination and sparking a global war. Besides, there were two powerful coalitions going at each other in WWI and Russia is pretty much alone here (except for Belarus and other Russian vassals sattelite states).

http://www.russia-direct.org/content/ukraine%E2%80%99s-pandora-box-2014-kiev-next-1914-sarajevo

Meanwhile, more fighting and more people killed in the conflict.

[palsch]

Palsche, they had pretty much no spine. Lots of things they said they would/wouldn't do. Conservatives want X? Better give it to them, regardless of promises. Conservatives don't want Y? Well, neither do we, now!

Examples?

[Guardian G.I.]

Russian media has reported that pro-Russian forces in Slavyansk have shot down a Ukrainian An-30 reconnaissance plane.
This video shows the moment when the plane was hit. I'm not sure if the radio chatter in the background is Ukrainian or pro-Russian.
The plane gliding away with a burning engine.

Overall the fighting in Slavyansk is getting more and more fierce each day - Ukrainian forces are reportedly shelling positions of pro-Russian forces with howitzers and Grad rocket artillery. Ukrainian army has deployed tanks against pro-Russian forces.
Pro-Russian forces have repeatedly claimed about Ukrainian attack helicopters being shot down over the past days on their websites.

Spoiler: collateral damage (click to show/hide)

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Meanwhile, more fighting and more people killed in the conflict.

Expect more of that at least for few months. And thousands dead. It is a sad truth. And then, after Ukrainian army will win, expect terrorism with constant attacks for years (or till Putin will be removed)

Yeah I think there are few chances that Ukraine will lose that war. What our enemy needs to win? Several possible scenarios

a) Make world force Ukraine to stop, through UN security council and the like. Not gonna to happen I hope it is obvious why.
b) Spread the conflict to the whole country. They constantly try but no luck. And their failure demonstrates that there are no Balkans in Ukraine. If it was an ethnic conflict we would see bad stuff all over country. Russians are large minority all over Ukraine, especially in cities.
c) Get massive support in the region that they partially control. It's like five million people, should they manage to rise a 100 000 army that war will be imposible to win in any acceptable way. They'll not manage that. They can't even gather 50 000+ peaceful protests to support them
d) Get mass desertions and defections in Ukrainian army. While there are some examples of that, it is not massive and doesn't change the overall picture much
e) Get anti-war sentiments in Ukraine high enough so that Ukrainians will demand to stop the war... Doubt it. While, of cause, we'll see a lot of "bring my son back" kind of protests that is a war on a home turf, so no USA in Vietnam style surrender

There are two real ways for them to actually win
f) Direct Russian intervention with , at least, aviation. Putin looks mad enough to do just thast, but strategically it is weird. March was a time to start a full scale war. now Ukrainian army is few times more battle ready than it was before.
g) Betrayal of our political elites. that they'll sign some deals with Putin to stop the war and shit like that. But then Ukraine may explode in a rebellion once again and hello a real junta

Other than that it is a matter of time when side with tanks, artillery and aviation will eliminate the side with light weaponry. The only thing that is uncertain: How many Ukrainian soldiers and civilians will die

[mainiac]

Examples?

How about the AV vote, the centerpiece of the Liberal Democrat platform and their main motivation for the coalition?  The Tories promised to pursue it then cut the legs out from underneath it.  If I was Nick Clegg I would have ended the coalition as soon as it became obvious the Tories were breaking their biggest promise.  When the terms of the AV referendum were made public it was clear that the Tories had nothing but contempt for their coalition partners.  It's not too surprising that the voters decided to share the sentiment.

[palsch]

How about the AV vote, the centerpiece of the Liberal Democrat platform and their main motivation for the coalition?  The Tories promised to pursue it then cut the legs out from underneath it.  If I was Nick Clegg I would have ended the coalition as soon as it became obvious the Tories were breaking their biggest promise.  When the terms of the AV referendum were made public it was clear that the Tories had nothing but contempt for their coalition partners.  It's not too surprising that the voters decided to share the sentiment.

I'm not quite sure what you thought was happening there.

The promise in the original coalition agreement was that both parties would whip Parliamentary votes behind a range of political reforms (fixed term parliaments, etc) as well as a law mandating a referendum on AV. There was never a promise that the Tories would support a Yes vote in the referendum, and it had been known from the time of the agreement that the Tories would be leading the opposition.

The actual referendum terms were seen as reasonably even handed, even if not ideal. That's the extent of the coalition agreement on the matter. The campaign was independent and rather messed up, but that's partly because the Lib Dems were so unpopular for entering the coalition they tried to distance them campaign from their senior figures, while the opposition threw a fairly slick team at it.

[RedKing]

Just a brief post here to note the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. The one time a year when many French feel genuine outpourings of gratitude towards the United States (and in which the contributions of the UK often go overshadowed, at least in American media coverage...)

[mainiac]

I'm not quite sure what you thought was happening there.

What I thought was that the Liberal Democrats were being incredibly naive and accepting an empty formality when they should have insisted on a real concession.  Nick Clegg said that AV was a major sticking point when negotiating with Labour.  Well look at what the Tories gave him in the end, nothing.