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Brown braced for defeat as polls open in Norwich North byelection

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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-23-09 04:37 AM
Original message
Brown braced for defeat as polls open in Norwich North byelection
One thing to look for here will be the performance of the Greens, as Norwich is one of those places where they do very well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/23/polls-open-norwich-north-byelection

Gordon Brown is bracing himself for electoral defeat as polls opened today in the Norwich North byelection.

Labour has held the seat comfortably since 1997 but the party is expected to pay a heavy price for the MPs' expenses controversy in the first Westminster byelection since the Commons was rocked by the scandal.

Unusually, the votes will be counted tomorrow rather than at the close of the polls this evening, partly because staffing a daytime count is easier. This has not happened at a byelection in recent years.

The byelection was caused by the resignation of Ian Gibson, a leftwinger who quit parliament after Labour ruled that he would not be allowed to stand at the next election because he used parliamentary expenses to fund a flat which he subsequently sold at a discount to his daughter. Gibson, who was popular in the constituency, had a majority of 5,459 in 2005, and Labour's decision to ban him as a candidate appears to have backfired, with some voters telling the party that they will not vote for his replacement, 28-year-old Chris Ostrowski, because they think Gibson was treated unfairly.
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Nihil Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-23-09 05:27 AM
Response to Original message
1. Run that by me again?
> some voters telling the party that they will not vote for his replacement,
> 28-year-old Chris Ostrowski, because they think Gibson was treated unfairly.

So some voters are saying that yes, the MPs are corrupt as fuck, wasting
the taxpayers' money on their greedy & nepotistic schemes but they still
want them to stay on the gravy train ...?

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :wtf:
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-23-09 06:19 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Apparently a common reaction in Norwich
On the radio yesterday, they said all candidates had been going around saying how good an MP Gibson was, because they know how much the voters like him - and that Gibson might have been able to win as an independent if he had chosen to stand.

What I haven't heard is how much the discount on the flat was.
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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 02:45 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. Ian Gibson was seen as more independent and left wing then most Labour MP's
Edited on Fri Jul-24-09 03:31 AM by T_i_B
Here's his voting record

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/ian_gibson/norwich_north#votingrecord
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?id=uk.org.publicwhip/member/1744&showall=yes#divisions

I don't know what he was like on constituency matters, answering correspondance and so on, but that may have played a part as well.
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TheBigotBasher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-23-09 01:31 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. It is not that they wanted him on the gravy train
There were others who did worse but remain in the Cabinet. It is a reaction to double standards.
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BolivarianHero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-23-09 08:51 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Do you know anything about internal Labour politics?
This is the same bullshit that went down in 2005 when Blair and his cronies used feminist rhetoric as a means of pushing genuine progressives out of the Labour Party.

In the Welsh constituency (which my Canadian ass almost referred to as a riding) of Bleneau-Gwent (sp?), Blair faced the prospect of a *gasp* leftist candidate, Welsh Assemblyman Peter Law, who would stand up to his neo-liberalism and his support for the Iraqi war. As a result, he and his clique parachuted a bunch of female Blairbots from London in an attempt to force an all-woman shortlist on the constituency. The people, residents of what many consider the most socialist riding in the UK, called his bluff and elected Law as an independent. Blair's handmaid (10 points if you get the Atwood allusion...) was awarded with a seat in the House of Lords.

What people on the centre are too fucking stupid to understand is that if you don't like socialism, run as a centrist or as a conservative. Otherwise, stay the fuck out of our business or we will see to it that you go down in flames.

Also, if you think a warmonger with friends in Opus Dei has anything of substance to offer women, you are too fucking stupid to be posting here.
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TheBigotBasher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-23-09 11:27 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. ???

Also, if you think a warmonger with friends in Opus Dei has anything of substance to offer women, you are too fucking stupid to be posting here.


???
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BolivarianHero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 09:53 AM
Response to Reply #5
10. Heh...
Opus Dei is a far-right faction tied to the Roman Catholic Church. Ruth Kelly, a Labour MP who is a member of this organization, rewrote the gay rights policies in the UK under Tony Blair.

One of the many reasons why LGBT Britons prefer the LibDems and smaller regionalist/leftist parties to either the Tories or LieBlair.
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TheBigotBasher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 11:30 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. I know who Opus Dei are
and I knew about the Ruth Kelly links. I was just wondering if you were on about the Scots Nat who is linked to Opus Dei. (I spent all night looking for it and found some interesting stuff).
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LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 08:16 AM
Response to Reply #3
9. Agreed
Some of us outside the constituency - and obviously some in it - suspect that Gibson may have been scapegoated to a degree, because he was independent and to the left of the government. One reason why I'm a bit unhappy about the national parties t having too much sway over selection/ deselection decision by local parties; it often ends up as a way of ensuring yes-people.

So I can fully understand the consituency Labourites being unhappy - though allowing a Tory to get in was not IMO the best way of dealing with the situation!
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #9
12. Having said that, his use of the 2nd home allowance does look dodgy:
Edited on Fri Jul-24-09 11:51 AM by muriel_volestrangler
Mr Gibson claimed almost £80,000 in four years for mortgage interest and bills on a London flat which was the main home of his daughter, a civil servant who was then in her late twenties. Helen Gibson lived there with her boyfriend rent-free, with all bills paid by the taxpayer, for several years after the MP bought it in 1999.

Mr Gibson, who will meet his local party in the coming days to discuss his future, said last night that he stayed in the small basement flat for three nights a week “most weeks”, before selling the property to the couple last June for approximately half the market value.
...
It is not known how much Mr Gibson, the MP from Norwich North, paid for the flat in Baron’s Court, west London, but he sold it to Miss Gibson and William Turner last year for £162,000.

The basement flat next door sold for £260,000 in 2004 and yesterday a local estate agent said that similar properties in the street were worth £300,000-£375,000 last June.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5364417/MPs-expenses-Ian-Gibsons-flat-for-daughter-and-boyfriend-courtesy-of-the-taxpayer.html


And by selling below market value, he avoided paying some, or all, of the capital gains tax his second home should have been subject to. While his daughter won't pay any on it, it being her (and her boyfriend's) residence. It looks like one of the worse expenses claims to me.
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LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-25-09 05:55 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Yes, but if he got 162000 for a flat that could have sold for 300000...
Edited on Sat Jul-25-09 05:57 AM by LeftishBrit
isn't he losing out, even taking into account what he avoided in capital gains tax? I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, and may be missing something, but it doesn't look to me as though he profited from the gravy train in the way that some did. And it's not impossible that he let her have it rent-free, *because* he needed to park himself on her and actually use the flat regularly. To make it clear - I don't think that MPs *should* be getting all these allowances that they do - I'd rather they got a bit more in salary and scrapped all the allowances; then at least I'd know exactly what I'm helping to pay them! I'm just not convinced that he acted worse than loads of others.

In any case, it does seem as though the constituents, rightly or wrongly, were pissed off by the government's interference here. Just a pity that it resulted in a Tory getting the seat. And anyone, who was born in 1982 and is *already* a Tory MP, must have something seriously wrong with her!
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-25-09 11:57 AM
Response to Reply #13
14. His daughter and her boyfriend have benefitted massively
They've got £140,000 or more, tax free, in the worth of the flat. And they were able to live rent, council tax, and utility-free in it for years before that. That £140,000 has come from the taxpayer paying the interest on the mortgage, and the running costs, and if the flat had been sold for the true market value, the taxpayer would at least have got back £56,000 (40% of 140K).

So he loses £84,000, the taxpayer loses £56,000, and his daughter gains £140,000. I'm no happier at MPs ripping off the taxpayer on behalf of their family than on their own behalf.
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 07:14 AM
Response to Original message
7. Tories win; Labour holds on to 2nd; Lib Dems 3rd, only just ahead of UKIP
Chloe Smith (Conservative): 13,591

Chris Ostrowski (Labour): 6,243

April Pond (Liberal Democrat): 4,803

Glenn Tingle (UK Independence Party): 4,068

Rupert Read (Green): 3,350

Craig Murray (Put an Honest Man into Parliament): 953

Robert West (BNP): 941

Bill Holden (Independent): 166

Howling Laud (Monster Raving Loony): 144

Anne Fryatt (NOTA): 59

Thomas Burridge (Libertarian): 36

Peter Baggs (Independent): 23

Turnout was 45.88% – down almost a third on the 2005 general election figure of 61.09%. Labour supporters are thought to have stayed at home in protest against the party's treatment of Gibson, a popular local figure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/24/norwich-north-byelection-result
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non sociopath skin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-24-09 07:32 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. Is it just me or does Chloe Smith look like Ruth Kelly's sister?
Anyone know if she's a bass-baritone, too?

The Skin
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IndianaGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-25-09 08:05 PM
Response to Original message
15. an unnecessary by-election caused by barring Mr Gibson from standing at the next election
Another blow for Labour in Norwich by-election

Friday 24 July 2009by Adrian Roberts


Labour MP John McDonnell pointed out that it was an unnecessary by-election caused by barring Mr Gibson from standing at the next election.

"What is clear is that the Gordon Brown/Peter Mandelson strategy is not working," said Mr McDonnell.

"However hard it spins it, this is a shocking result for Labour," he said.

"The first thing that Gordon Brown and the Labour Party NEC should do is to apologise to Ian Gibson and his family, the people of Norwich, and the Labour Party members nationwide for robbing them of a decent, hard-working, principled MP, who was greatly respected in his local area.

"If we are going to learn anything from this defeat, the Prime Minister has to stop obeying the diktats of Peter Mandelson and start listening to the people."

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman said the result was "very disappointing" but stressed that the turnout had been "appalling."

"It is more of our voters staying at home or going to other smaller parties rather than a big shift from Labour to the Conservatives," she claimed.

Ms Harman said she was "sorry" that Mr Gibson had chosen to spark the by-election by quitting as an MP immediately when he was blocked from standing again.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/britain/another_blow_for_labour_in_norwich_by_election
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TheBigotBasher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-25-09 08:18 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. The Mandleson strategy has nothing to do with Gordon Brown.
He wants Lisbon passed. Once it is passed, Brown is for the wolves.
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fedsron2us Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-26-09 07:18 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. Mandleson is a classic version of someone who is 'clever' but not 'wise'
Edited on Sun Jul-26-09 07:25 AM by fedsron2us
The EU super state is probably already doomed regardless of whether the Lisbon treaty gets passed.

The economic slump is already eating away at its foundations.

The Irish are already experiencing the downside of losing independence over your currency. Indeed, I suspect that some are beginning to realize there was not much point in gaining sovereignty from Britain if you then just give it away to another power.

The Irish economy is contracting at an astonishing pace that even leaves a debt junky nation as the UK in its wake

http://businessandleadership.com/news/article/14306/owner-manager/irish-economy-contracts-8-5pc-on-annual-basis

Because they can not inflate/devalue the currency all the pain is going to be in spending cuts which are likely top see mass revolt in Eire. The rest of the EU may well be able to bale out the Irish but when Spain, Italy, Greece and the eastern European states all turn up as well with the begging bowl then the Germans who largely fund the whole project may decide to call it a day.
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