Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Jeremy Corbyn, brother of famous British skeptic Piers Corbyn, is currently the front runner to win the leadership of the Labour Party, the main political opposition in the British Parliament.
According to The Express, a popular daily British newspaper;
Following the tensions between Ed Miliband and his elder brother David that dogged the party – after they ran against each other in the last Labour leadership election – the current front-runner to replace Ed as Labour leader could yet face his own fraternal headache.
In stark contrast to his younger sibling, Piers Corbyn, 68, has made no secret of his dislike for “global warming hysteria” and has built a reputation as one of Britain’s most vocal climate change sceptics.
The Corbyn brothers disagree wildly on environmental issues, with the left-wing Islington North MP and Labour leadership front-runner a keen supporter of green issues.
Jeremy, 66, was one of more than 400 MPs who signed an parliamentary Early Day Motion on climate change, leading to the 2008 Climate Change Act and ambitious carbon reduction targets for 2050.
He has also taken a lead in campaigning on the issue, including taking part in a mass climate change lobby outside parliament in May.
Piers, who has now built a career as a long-range climate and weather forecaster, served as a councillor in the 1980s but quit the Labour Party in 2002.
As The Express indicates, this sadly doesn’t herald an immediate major change in the British political landscape regarding climate change. However, it probably doesn’t hurt to have someone close to a person who may become the next Prime Minister of Britain, who understands the issues.
Piers Corbyn is a controversial figure. His weather prediction claims have attracted strong criticism from WUWT. On the other hand, Piers is undoubtably a significant thorn in the side of the British climate establishment. For a while he was the go to guy for climate stories, back when British producers tried to show different points of view. Given that Piers’ brother Jeremy achieved such political prominence, we can probably expect to see more of Piers in the British media.
Piers also got a mention in the Climategate archive, an intriguing email which suggests that many people in the climate establishment are very hostile to nuclear power, despite nuclear being a totally obvious solution to the CO2 problem they allege we are experiencing.
Climategate email 0837094033.txt
PS Britain seems to have found it’s Pat Michaels/Fred Singer/Bob Balling/
Dick Lindzen. Our population is only 25 % of yours so we only get 1 for
every 4 you have. His name in case you should come across him is
Piers Corbyn. He is nowhere near as good as a couple of yours and he’s
an utter prat but he’s getting a lot of air time at the moment. For his
day job he teaches physics and astronomy at a University and he predicts
the weather from solar phenomena. He bets on his predictions months
ahead for what will happen in Britain. He now believes he knows all
there is to know about the global warming issue. He’s not all bad as
he doesn’t have much confidence in nuclear-power safety. Always says
that at the begining of his interviews to show he’s not all bad !
Cheers Again
Phil
Dr Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
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Piers Corbyn when the Thames freezes over?
http://weather.gc.ca/saisons/animation_e.html?id=month&bc=sea
“However, it probably doesn’t hurt to have someone close to a person who may become the next Prime Minister of Britain, who understands the issues.”
So you think the Corbyn brothers have learned to behave & learn from each other, after reading all the Bible stories about brothers who … didn’t?
There is no chance Jeremy Corbyn will be Prime Minister. He may split or destroy the Labour Party but that is as far as he will go!
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Correct. Labor is simply filling a hole with a cypher.
There is no possibility of Corbyn becoming the next British Prime Minister , he is far to the left of the vast majority of the electorate and is as much of a liability as previous leftist leader Michael Foot was. The Conservative (ruling Party) biased Daily Telegraph has suggested its readers should join the labour party and vote for Corbyn on the basis that Labour would lose disastrously in 2020 with him at the helm.
The new leader of the former Govt coalition partners- the LIb Dems- has more chance of being elected Prime Minister . Interestingly he is the son of the late great climatologist Hubert Lamb protégé of Phil Jones.
tonyb
That is to say that Phil jones was under the tutelage of lamb, not the other way round..
Tonyb
I had been considering purchasing a copy of Lamb’s ” Climate ,History and the Modern world” , available second hand apparently at just about affordable price, but wondered how relevant it still is , given the advances in climate science and the data on global temperatures in the 20 years since the 2nd edition was published.
Norman Lamb lost the Lib Dem leadership race to Tim Farron.
Jeremy Corbyn is so far to the left he thinks Britain can learn from Karl Marx, wants a ‘wealth tax’ and laments that Labour under Ed Milliband was too pro-business. So I’m really sure this kind of nutter will listen to sensible opinion on gullible warming if it’s coming from his brother; just about as sure as I am that wind power really does work in the real world…(do I really need to add a /SARC tag here?).
” mikewaite
July 27, 2015 at 1:44 am
I had been considering purchasing a copy of Lamb’s ” Climate ,History and the Modern world” , available second hand apparently at just about affordable price, but wondered how relevant it still is , given the advances in climate science and the data on global temperatures in the 20 years since the 2nd edition was published.”
Mike,
Excellent book, gives clear concise history of climate patterns to which you ADD ‘the advances in climate science and the data on global temperatures in the last 20 years’ .
Should be compulsory reading….buy it !!
He may be left wing but he’s still a politician, which means that green hysteria is very useful to him
Also, as long as the belief is spread that only right-wingers are sceptical, it makes no sense for a Labour candidate to be sceptical.
They won’t attract votes from the right. And they lose votes from the left.
It’s a myth though.
As is obviously the case if you read this blog (or others), not all sceptics are right-wing.
Nobody has said that only right wingers are skeptical. But you have to admit that the vast majority of warmistas are also left wing to far left wing.
For perspective. I am mostly left wing in views, came to be a skeptic as I studied the issue to better convince people of its truth.
Randy, me too. And I, an attorney, not a scientist, keep working on my brother who is a PhD in biophysics, and has beat me like drum for about the last 5 years. He hates WUWT. But recently he sent me something about the upcoming mini-ice age predicted by solar physicists since he knows I am intrigued with Svensmark’s views. I put a link in Anthony’s tip jar and never heard anything further.
So I sent him a paper by Nir Shaviv, an Israeli astrophysicist, who collaborates with Svensmark, and my brother actually complemented the paper. Shaviv’s paper showed that when the solar system moved through the spiral arms of the Galaxy and was bombarded with cosmic rays, the earth got very cold. Happens about every 140 million years.
Since this article is about dueling brothers, I found that interesting. Brothers usually talk even when they disagree on things and you never know….
That reads like the proper endorsement of a good scientist. Phil can really pick ’em. If he despises you, you are really on top of your game.
The level of self-righteousness in the Climategate emails is breathtaking. I don’t think the average reader understands how many guys there are like this in academia. A university is not really a single institution. It is like a cluster of independent little kingdoms each with a little king and a huddle of serfs.
Some kings are benevolent and useful and knowledgeable. Some definitely are not.
Bloke down the pub
Meant to say that Norman lamb was the next prospective leader but was defeated and that his fathers books are always a good read as much of the research doesn’t date.
As an aside Phil jones has also written some good books and is perhaps more sceptical than we give him credit for
Tonyb
Another physicist who “denies” the Greenhouse Effect. Sure are piling up, aren’t they?
Can’t think of one, and there are none mentioned in this article. Who do you suppose you are talking about?
Greenhouses restrict convection.
With a single-glazed greenhouse the glazing material’s IR properties make little difference because material that traps outbound IR also prevents inbound solar IR from entering, most of the energy of which is lost by convection from hot glass. Hence the advantage of the IR filter is offset by a disadvantage.
Greenhouses gouble-glazed with an IR-transparent outer layer and IR-blocking inner layer, warm somewhat faster because they trap both inbound and outbound IR, the inbound IR heating the (insulated) inner glass layer which then heats the air inside.
Experimental proof : http://climateclarity.esy.es
The relevance to the atmosphere and CO2 is open to question of course, and might be modified by the IR passbands of CO2 and glass being different. But, if the same mechanism applies, high altitude CO2 may well have a cooling effect which offsets the blanketing effect of low-altitude CO2.
IMO probably does. Just one of many factors ignored or downplayed by IPCC’s GIGO models.
You’ll never really understand the badly misnamed Greenhouse Effect until you realise that the most potent warming gas; water vapour…is also the most potent cooling gas. See ‘Convection’.
Also it’s very rare to meet anyone these days who denies the basic science…most of us understand (and observed data has confirmed) that whatever the Greenhouse Effect is, the one thing we can be sure of is that it’s NEGLIGIBLE!
yes, insulation in your home doesn’t really make the house warmer in the winter, it just makes the outside colder. 😉
Roy
That house I assume has an adequate supply of heat to make up for a lack of insulation heat retention. In the case, insulation does prevent the outside from being warmed. Is this you sense of humor at work?
The earth uses water to limit the warming. It is a refrigeration cycle, ie, it is the opposite of the home heating analogue. The insulating greenhouse effect is overwhelmed. The outside space sees no difference in warming, unless the sun changes its output.
Feeling a tad mischievous this morning, Roy?
Thanks for a starting my day with a smile.
“one thing we can be sure of is that it’s NEGLIGIBLE!”
more settled science from skeptics.
you would do well to listen to Roy Spencer.
how much warming is an open question. not settled.
There is a debate: Nic Lewis and roy Spencer show you exactly where that debate is
and they show you HOW to be a part of that debate.
Roy Spencer is denying that Water Vapour is both a heat trapping and heat transporting gas.
Wow!
Dr Spencer, insulation doesn’t warm anything. Try defrosting your dinner by wrapping it in lots of insulation.
Steve, there are two camps, those that follow the science, and those that follow the climate models.
As long as that remains the case, the science will never be settled.
Out of curiosity, how much insulation does my house need to stay warm in winter if the furnace stops working?
“Out of curiosity, how much insulation does my house need to stay warm in winter if the furnace stops working?”
Why are you wondering? Do you expect the sun to stop working anytime soon? Unless you do, your question is irrelevant to the greenhouse effect that explains how the (average) steady-state temperature of a body like the Earth THAT IS HEATED BY THE SUN will be higher if there is a greenhouse effect than if there isn’t.
“Try defrosting your dinner by wrapping it in lots of insulation.”
Again, not a relevant comparison for the case of a planet heated by the sun.
As to convection and water vapor’s role in that: You are correct that convection is an important heat transfer mechanism that cools the Earth’s surface.
However, there is also an important limiting factor on convection: The atmosphere is only unstable to convection as long as the lapse rate is steeper than the appropriate adiabatic lapse rate. This limits the effectiveness of convection and, in particular, more rigorous calculations show that convection is only able to reduce the radiative greenhouse effect, not eliminate it, precisely because convection only reduces the lapse rate to a certain point rather than completely eliminating it.
@schitzree
Depends on the size of your house, type of roof, how many windows, if you have curtains and carpets, how thick they are, and how many people and animals are in your house generating heat from their bodies. With enough people and a small enough house, you could get by with no additional heat source. Inuit igloo for instance is comparatively much warmer than the outside.
how long is a piece of string anyway ?
The degree to which the climate control crowd is willing to go to. France is suggesting they are going to “retire” nuclear power production and replace it with “green” alternatives. France already derives 70% of electrical energy production from already built facilities (and therefore carbonless). We have definitely gone down the rabbit hole to the mad hatter’s tea party!
The French were laughing at all this nonsense, until the EU told them they had to build birdchoppers they neither wanted nor needed.
I was st University with Piers Corbyn in the 60s (Imperial when it was a top university). A very clever physicist, one of the top few. He was a leading light in “The Great Global Warming Swindle” that set me on the road to scepticism.
I too follow Piers’ work and he is very impressive. He certainly understands the issues around AGW. His record on long term weather prediction is pretty good: better than the UK Met Office by a long chalk (he believes btw that we are headed for a cooling period).
I doubt that he is close to Jeremy in any sense these days, and I very much doubt they discuss climate issues. Jeremy is very hard Left and the Labour Party has zero chance of being elected to power with him as leader.
Yes, Sam, Piers’ work is very impressive, and it proves that it’s the Sun that is driving our climate.
I still remember the shock that I felt when I first read about the key climategate emails.
But later, we were reassured by the BBC and assorted enquiries, that these were just a few emails that had been taken “out of context”.
I relaxed about the whole issue for a few years.
But then, as an independently minded person, I decided to investigate the reality of such claims by reading more of the emails for myself.
The experience was shocking and eye-opening.
This simple exercise lead me to realize that when placed in context the tiny number of reported emails are considerably more disconcerting than when they are – “out of context”.
As an introduction for the beginner – one hundred or so emails have been compiled in a handy pdf (link below) with some explanatory notes.
Obviously there are many more.
In my experience, the more that you read, the more context that you acquire, and the less you will trust the so-called “science” that was simultaneously being manufactured by the authors of the emails.
On top of which, I now see that the various enquiries and the BBC were willing participants in an attempted whitewash.
It’s the last time that I will be inclined to trust the official propaganda on any topic whatsoever.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/climategate-emails.pdf
Thanks for the link
Which I’ll read at my leisure,
Having an independent mind
Is something to treasure!
I tried to save the Lavoisier link but got an error message.
@ur momisugly Jan C.
right click on link, and select “Save link as …”, or “Save Target As…” (depending on your web-browser) from the droplist, Do remember WHERE you saved the file to. You DO need Acrobat Reader, a plugin, or similar to actually read the file. https://get.adobe.com/reader/ (other PDF Readers are available)
Labour, not Labor. As the “Labour” Party is a name and a Proper Noun, the alternative spelling is not appropriate. It’s highly unlikely that Piers will have any effect upon Jeremy. Jezza is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist and eco-loon extraordinaire, the Watermelon’s Watermelon. Piers left the Labour Party years ago, having attained political maturity beyond his sibling’s limited understanding, and runs a very successful weather forecasting business, being generally more accurate than the Met.O, admittedly a low hurdle to clear.
Good catch. In Australia, for some reason, it’s Labor. 🙂
“…In Australia, for some reason, it’s Labor…”
It’s really tempting to cast aspersions on the collective intelligence of a political party that can’t even spell, but my mum brought me up better than that so I’ll refrain.
Maybe Australians followed the Latin.
But in Australia, Liberals are Conservatives!
Fixed, thanks
Fascinating how most of the people who support the Labour party, don’t.
Just so you know, Jeremy Corbyn is a hard left, raging antisemite. He’s viewed as somewhat of a joke even within his own party… yet the Labour grassroots seem to adore him. He was nominated by the so-called moderate left, in order that they could “have a discussion on the party’s future direction”. That move has backfired massively.
I have rather more faith in the English electorate than the card-carrying Labourites; if they elect him it’ll just herald 5 years of ineffectual opposition.
Yes and Kanye West could be the next President of the United States!
Can he start immediately?
He will do a better job than the current seat-warmer.
“Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedos – of fact”. Climategate emails are sufficient reason in themselves to doubt every single “fact” of CAGW.
Concocted Codswollop…
That’s the UK Labour Party for you – if they have a choice of brothers they always seem to pick the wrong one!
“Climate Skeptic Piers Corbyn’s brother may be next British Prime Minister”
” /sarc ” is missing
that got me into moderation (?!)
Maybe ‘vukcevic’ got you into moderation. Done anything recently to tick off the MODs 🙂
“… he’s an utter prat…”
Pot, kettle “Doctor” Jones?
Ha ha ha yes, reminds me a bit of this …..
That is how 90% of conversations go round
at the so called “climatic research” establishments
The view on this side of the pond is that Jeremy Corbyn would be to the Labour Party in the forthcoming decade what Michael Foot was in the 1980s. There are even rumours and accusations going round that the leadership election (and hence the future of the party) is being poisoned in his favour by people joining just to vote for the “wrong” candidate.
It costs only £3 (US $4.5) then a fiver with bookies, it is a good investment and a lots of laughs all around.
Breitbart suggested people join the Labour Party, so they could vote for Jeremy, though I doubt there is enough of that kind of thing in practice to make a real difference. I think though its a mistake to underestimate how left wing the British electorate can be – I don’t think it impossible they will warm to Jeremy.
We didn’t think Obama could win either…
I was going to point that out Paul. Yes, he’s the lefty loony party.
I think most scientists do not pay attention to Piers Corbyn. There is not evidence for a relationship between solar activity and earthquakes for example.
Don’t think many of the scientists have really ever bothered to do much research into solar activity and earthquakes. I often wonder just how much these so-called experts know about anything. A while ago, I contacted a solar physicist who is touted as being one of the UK’s leading experts. I asked this person a question regarding the Sun’s rotation. The answer was ‘I don’t understand what you mean by the Sun’s rotation’. Duh!
Yes it’s amazing just how many people in a “vox pop”, will admit that the Earth rotates around the Sun, but have no idea that the Sun rotates at all. Quite a large percentage I found even believe that the Sun is like a giant “Electric Light Globe”, and that therefore it must have a constant Wattage output. One woman even claimed that Sunspots were “alien spacecraft, flying across the disc. It’s crazy what some members of the Public think (what goes on in their brains?). How can we hope to convince them of reality, when these are the images they have of the Sun-Earth-Climate system ?
Harry, most scientists do not pay attention to anyone that questions the endless pots of cash that end up in their government funded piggy troughs.
Well Piers Corbyn has not to my knowledge been invited back onto a major news network since he told viewers live on Sky News here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6zSLQA-BrY) that so far as climate was concerned ‘CO2 is irrelevant.’ He’s very good to listen to on climate change but has some, let’s say, interesting views on things like the Israeli lobby and exactly who was responsible for 9/11.
His brother could win the race for Labour leader though I suspect sanity will prevail and he’ll fall short. Even he were to win, there is no chance on earth that the public would elect him as Prime Minister. British elections, with very few exceptions, are won from the centre. There is no reason to think the hard left is any more appealing to the British electorate than it was when it was repeatedly crushed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Overall I think there are encouraging signs that the current govt is trying to tread a line between doing nothing about climate change and pretending to.
“Well Piers Corbyn has not to my knowledge been invited back onto a major news network since he told viewers live on Sky … that so far as climate was concerned ‘CO2 is irrelevant.’ ”
That view was mainstream science when I went to university, but these days anyone risks marginalization or worse if they take that view. But, recalling the Sufi teaching story I remember that “this too shall pass”. Someday Piers Corbyn’s climate views will again be mainstream. (one hopes)
Well worth watching this video again, as it demonstrates the 2009 hysteria that has not been proven true whatsoever.
The Warmist here mentions the terror of ‘tipping points’: of Arctic ice disappearing and Amazon forests disappearing. That was six years ago. Where are those ‘tipping points’ now?
Alarmism, alarmism, alarmism.
Ralph
He will not be the PM of the UK but may lead the labour party and lead it into the political wilderness for a generation. I paid my £3 and will vote for him.
Stupid. Would you cock a gun at your head for laughs too? Just stupid.
You really should google Steven Bradbury.
If a brother who has extensive knowledge on the subject is not able to convince his older brother to be quizzical and not to simply accept the warmist propaganda without questioning the underlying data, it demonstrates clearly that AGW is a belief thing.
If the elder Corbyn were to become leader of the opposition, there is obviously no prospect that Piers will be able to persuade his elder brother that CAGW has been exaggerated and that climate sensitivity (if any) is small to modest, and/or that renewables such as solar, windpower or even biomass do not result in the reduction of any significant quantities of CO2 and are therefore pointless merely pushing up the price of energy and forcing increasing numbers into fuel poverty.
It is quite clear that many of JC’s views are devoid of reality, and CAGW would appear to be just one of many ‘crazy’ views that that man holds. Unfortunately, there are a lot of ‘mad dogs’ around, and, even more unfortunately, many hold position of sway and influence.
Piers is the elder brother having been born in 1947, as opposed to Jeremy who was born in 1949. But still we are rather jumping the gun somewhat here. Jeremy isn’t yet elected leader of the Labour Party, Then he has to wait 5 years and then win a General election and still be Leader. At that time he would be ready to listen to anything which made some excuse to reopen coal mines, and run steam trains on the (then) newly nationalized British railways perhaps ? Still I think it may be an unlikely scenario though. You can’t run a steam train on wind power, and windmills provide no 100,000s of miners union jobs to fund the Labour Party ! – This is where Blair & Brown went tragically wrong.
……. allegedly 😉
I once did some vote telling in Britain, so for a few hours I was seated next to the Labor Teller, a charming old guy from Wales.
He had a very interesting take on the coal mine closures. He said “I go back to visit my old hometown, and people there are still very upset about the mines. But I think to myself – they’re still alive. People forget all the lung diseases, all the funerals, how bad mining was for your health.”
Seems unlikely, given the scale of the Tory and SNP wins. An article in New Statesman is complaining that everyone likes to say the right things (socialist) to sound noble, so this guy gets a lot of support, but many will still (quietly) vote Tory. I always think of Britain as fairly level-headed at its core. So no, we can’t keep spending money forever. No, we can’t force the system to be fair to all. Yes, we can subsidise windfarms, for a while, and some will benefit from that, but there’s a limit. Not that Tory policies are necessarily ideal, rather, on average Britain seems to drunkenly walk in a sensible direction.
It probably depends what happens to the economy. At the moment people appear to be satisfied with British Conservative economic management, but the national debt is still rising, unfunded public liabilities are at insane levels (total debt including unfunded liabilities is around £5 trillion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt ), and the Greek thing could yet blow up into something much bigger. China may also be sitting on the mother of all asset bubbles.
The next few years could create an opening for the hard left.
Eric,
How could you miss this gem in the Express article –
‘Bob Ward, a climate change expert’… 😯
IMO, and something you allude to above when you mention if the economy goes kerplunk – many didn’t vote for
Blair but they didn’t want Major (‘sleazy’ Tories) again. They didn’t vote Cameron but rather against Brown. Hardly anyone, even socialists, were convinced by ‘Red Ed’ Milliband (not a ‘socialist’ btw just a left leaning establishment buffoon) so Cameron wins. Often a vote is won not by endorsing a candidate but rejection of the other choices – especially with FPTP. Whilst there are those affixed to the parties come what may, many are not having seen far too many politicians expert only at patronage and troughing (The Speaker of the House – Labour party – John Bercow was chauffeur driven 0.7 miles, cost to tax payers £172!). Many of the public are sick of the same suited media savvy clones – Kendall seems like one too – heavy on spin light on substance. Farage is not, nor is Corbyn seen as part of the same establishment. So for example if Corbyn goes on to win the party nomination & stays the course to 2020 you could have an election win under FPTP not as an endorsement but a rejection of Cameron/Tories and a rejection of establishment politics.
However, perversely perhaps, had The Labour Party been headed up by Jeremy Corbyn last May, then The SNP would have hardly got any seats, and may well have even lost seats, to a hard left Labour Party, which would have made the SNP look like a pale shadow by comparison. It’s entirely conceivable, that with the Scottish seats, and gains in Wales, and in the South West and no further losses in their heartlands, the might have edged the May Election, or at least been in a coalition position.
Labour lost Scotland to the SNP. Jeremy Corbyn might get them Scotland back but he would have little chance in middle England. The Conservatives won an unexpected majority because the English were terrified of a weak Labour government depending on costly SNP support.
Labour always try to centralise power in London, they took Scotland for granted as safe Labour territory. The Scots voted SNP promised that a Labour SNP co-operation would get them everything they ever wanted and more. It was assumed that is the way it would go. The polls did not believe it could go any other way, no matter what the Conservatives did they could not get a lead over lack lustre Labour leader Ed Milliband.
Then we had the election, Scotland went national, England saw the misleading polls, panicked and it all went horribly wrong for Labour which is why they are having a leadership election.
Now there is a sudden reluctance to make electricity and gas ever more expensive by forcing them to buy renewable energy. The new mantra is that energy subsidies are for start ups, not for life. Britain might need renewables to meet it’s EU energy commitment but not at any cost. Also there is a referendum coming up on EU membership. Going by past experience, the EU will casually sabotage Cameron’s pro-EU campaign, then promise anything to justify a second referendum.
Robin, see Christopher Bookers column in the yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph. It is already happening. By consigning the Greeks to economic Armageddon and wanting power that is at dictatorship level, I think we all know what is in store. Obama is completely clueless about the EU.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11763271/The-EU-aims-to-make-us-second-class-citizens.html
is the article in question, but the following also from yesterday’s paper also make good reading.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11763272/How-Arctic-ice-has-made-fools-of-all-those-poor-warmists.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11763273/The-triple-bill-we-pay-for-solar-power.html
If the labour party went left enough to attract the Scottish faithful back to the fold that would be much to leftist for the much laRger English electorate. Let’s not forget that ukip with only one MP got far more votes than the SNP with some 50 MP’s
Tonyb
Robin Hewitt:
You say
Yes and no. The effects were because the Electoral System is ‘First Past The Post’ (i.e. a seat is won by the candidate with most votes whatever the share of the vote achieved by the candidate) and the SNP and UKIP votes were not uniformly distributed.
Prior to the recent (i.e. May) General Election Labour had almost every seat in Scotland and the SNP won them in the election. So, yes, this increased the difference between the number of Conservative and Labour seats.
But, no, there is no evidence that the English were afraid of anything.
The Conservatives obtained an unexpected overall majority because UKIP took more Labour votes than Conservative votes – especially in the English Midlands – and this gave seats to the Conservatives.
The percentage share of the popular vote and the total number of seats won by each Party was
Conservative
37% 331 seats
Labour
31% 232 seats
UKIP
13% 1 seat
SNP
5% 56 seats
LibDem
8% 8 seats
Green Party
4% 1 seat
Others
2% 21 seats
It is also worth noting that the popular idea of the polls having failed to predict the election result is incorrect. The poll predictions of popular share of the vote were correct to within ±3% but – on this occasion – that share did not directly relate to seats won because of the localised distributions of SNP and UKIP votes.
Richard
If the referendum on the EU is to stay in, he would take all of the UKIP’s left wing vote.
Richard,
Two points.
1) Depends on who the UKIP voters were. In the May election, they might well have come more from Labour than the Tories, maybe seven ex-Labour to six Conservative, ie not enough to make up the six-point gap.
2) The Tories might finally change the makeup of constituencies, which has favored Labour, increasing their seat count from the same vote share.
So Labour will need the SNP to form a coalition regime, which fact will not endear them to English voters.
I was going to vote UKIP but just before the election Cameron warned us of a Labour SNP alliance and I switched, it was just too ghastly to contemplate. Talking to people afterwards I found I was not alone.
Sturgis Hooper:
You say to me
re. your Point 1, the data show that in the May election Labour lost more votes to UKIP than the Tories and that is what gave the Tories an overall majority.
The “six-point gap” was derived from the SNP obtaining 5% of the popular vote and UKIP taking more votes from Labour than the Tories.
re. your Point 2, the Tories will always do anything to gain electoral benefit so your suggestion of gerrymandering may well occur, but at present that is a supposition and not a fact.
Your suggestion that “Labour will need the SNP to form a coalition regime” may or may not prove to be true, and your assertion that this would “not endear them to English voters” is probably not correct because it would tend to inhibit another Scottish independence referendum.
Richard
Robin,
That is in line with what my English friends have also told me.
Richard,
My point was that the difference between Tory and Labour defections to UKIP cannot be significantly different. Maybe it was five and eight instead of six and seven percent. If you believe that UKIP cost Labour the election, then IMO more power to UKIP.
My other point is not that the Tories would gerrymander, but that they would finally undo, ie un-gerrymander, the big gerrymandered advantage that Labour has for so long enjoyed.
IMO more English voters would be aghast of the SNP in power than the few who would welcome it to keep Scotland in the Union. But you of course could be right and not just thinking wishfully. A nightmare would be England and Wales voting to leave the EU while Scotland votes to stay in. That could set up another referendum, which might follow the lines of the election (50% against union) rather than the referendum (55% for it).
Sturgis Hooper:
I write to provide a clarification. You say
The data are clear. UKIP obtained 13% of the popular vote but only won 1 seat. This 13% of the popular vote consisted of defections from other parties. The Labour defections to UKIP were so much more than the Tory defections to UKIP that they provided Labour seats to the Tories especially in the East Midlands.
This transfer of Labour seats to the Tories was sufficient to give the Tories an overall majority. I don’t know how this difference could have been more “significantly different”.
Richard
BTW, what percent of the Labour vote was in Scotland and, for that matter, Wales?
An independent Scotland means the end of Labour in England and Scotland.
IMO the English should let the Scots go and be as Commie as they wanna be. What will they do after the oil runs out?
Sturgis Hooper:
Thankyou for stating your true position when you write
Your comments do make sense in the light of that. However, they are not pertinent to the subject of this thread which is NOT about English nationalism.
The realities in terms of this thread are:
Jeremy Corbyn is not likely to become Labour Leader.
Labour is not likely to win a General Election with Jeremy Corbyn as Leader.
Jeremy Corbyn is not likely to be influenced by his brother, Piers.
Labour is likely to again form a government in a future General Election.
Richard
Richard,
It would be foolish to argue that Labour will never, ever form a coalition regime again, but IMO the likelihood of that happening depends upon the EU referendum vote. Should England vote to leave, would Scotland go with it?
If not, then a UKIP win could mean the end of the UK. Which need not be a bad thing. Little England would do fine, probably better, than Great Britain. Scotland, not so much, but the Scots would have made the bed in which they chose to lie.
It would however be bad, ironically, for Chris Monckton, UKIP’s former Scotland Chairman. His Lordship may correct me if wrong, but it appears from his comments here that he was buoyed by the referendum results but dismayed by the election. The Monckton family saga would continue, from its roots in Yorkshire, settled by Angles and their close kin the Danes and Norwegians, to life among the Saxons and Jutes in Kent, then north to Scotland, perhaps to return back to England, perhaps to an elevated part of it such as the Lake District, as second best option in Britain to the Highlands. Only absent the colorful Picts and Gaels.
However I should add that, without having seen any polling on the subject, I’d be surprised if even England voted to leave the EU. As IMO it would be better off doing.
To clarify on constituencies, the problem isn’t actual gerrymandering, but that, unlike the US, which redraws congressional districts after every census, boundaries haven’t been changed for decades, during which time population has shifted from the industrial Midlands and North toward the South of England. This gives Labour a decided electoral advantage. Some northern constituencies are so low in population now that they’re practically rotten boroughs.
Richard, you say
In addition, the Conservatives gained quite a few seats down here in the South West because the former supporters of their erstwhile coalition partners, the Lib Dems, deserted their old allegiances and, most ironically, voted Conservative in sufficient numbers to render the whole area, from Penzance to Wiltshire and Gloucestershire (with the exception of 4 seats in Bristol), what psephologists often call ‘a sea of blue’.
Mr Green Genes:
You rightly say to me
Yes. My Constituency here in Falmouth was one of those that switched from yellow to blue.
There are many such details that could be discussed. But none of them are pertinent to whether the adoption of Corbyn as Labour Leader would affect the future prospects of Labour. In the case that you – rightly – cite, seats that switch between Tory and LibDem don’t affect the possibility of Labour obtaining an overall majority government.
The switch to UKIP being more from Labour than the Conservatives does affect the possibility of Labour obtaining an overall majority government: a reversal of the switch would provide a Labour government.
The adoption of Corbyn as Labour Leader is pertinent to recovery of votes Labour lost to UKIP.
But it needs to be remembered that whomever is Labour Leader the switch from Labour to the SNP reduces the probability of Labour obtaining an overall majority government (especially if that switch is not reversible as seems likely in the foreseeable future).
Richard
‘Corbyn might get them Scotland back ‘ only be promising them independence therefore weeping out their usefulness in the first place .
Your premiss is contradictory though.
you state :
“Labour lost Scotland to the SNP. Jeremy Corbyn might get them Scotland back but he would have little chance in middle England. The Conservatives won an unexpected majority because the English were terrified of a weak Labour government depending on costly SNP support.”
It would have been the case, however, had Corbyn been able to stem those losses, then the SNP would have posed no threat, and so middle Englanders would not be scared into voting for the Tory Candidates, because the SNP would have had virtually no influence on anybody, and they may even have lost seats to Labour, In such circumstances Labour may even have had a majority, or at least being in a coalition position, with SDLP, and the few LIBDEMS, who would have been more numerous, their votes not having been squeezed by the SNP Scare.
If ….. “ifs” and “ands” were pots and pans, there’d be no need for Walmart
(modernized “ye olde” proverb)
UK TV news is mentioning that some large unions are phoning people to join the labour party to vote for Corbyn. Thousands of calls per day apparently.
Jeremy Corbyn has a clear view on the real issues facing the British people..
He has consistently voted against the disastrous foreign policies of the Blair and Cameron Governments adventures such as Iraq Libya and the proposed bombing of the Assad government.
On domestic issues he is anti-austerity and gives hope to the under 30-ties who currently face no hope solutions from all the other political parties.
On global warming I suppose he is simply following what the ‘experts’ such as the Royal Society and the Institute of Physics tell him.
The advice of these ‘experts’ simply echo the fraud of climate (so called) science will not occur to him.
On a site like WUWT its easy to forget that the vast bulk of people simply rely on information fed to them by a corrupt media.
That’s why there is an uphill struggle to mobilize opinion to stop climate disaster propaganda securing the agenda and outcome’s of the forthcoming Paris meeting.
Good points.
My sense is that the costs to everybody of “fighting climate change” will have to rise a lot higher before people wake up and become willing to listen to reason again.
“Jeremy Corbyn has a clear view on the real issues facing the British people…”
You think others are idiots or you are the “useful idiot” or deluded.
He is a Totalitarian.
He only voted against against Libya and Assad intervention because he is on the other side.
Not because they are disastrous.
There is no such thing as being anti austerity, he just fashions the austerity of printing even more money.
He hates freedom. You seem too.
AlexS:
Your psychological projection is extreme. Corbyn promotes freedom.
Richard
MikeWaite
You can still buy new copies as well as secondhand. I believe it is worth buying for a number of reasons:
Hubert Lamb was a very distinguished scientist who was not taunted by politics
His book tries to bring climate science together as a whole and then explains how it affects people
This was written at a time when those studying climate could be respected unlike the current climate alarmist cult.
Some of the data is out of date but like most classics, it is still worth reading
Thank you confused Photon , decision made
I think you meant ‘ tainted’ but taunted is much more Graphic
Tonyb
Yes thanks – too much alcohol