 Francois beats Nicolas
Monday 23 April 2012
This was the totally expected outcome of the first round of the French presidential election.
Exit polls had Hollande taking 28-29 percent of the vote, with Sarkozy getting 25-26, although the actual count has put between less than one and two percent between them. The interesting one though is the third place - Marine Le Pen. She was polling 17-20 percent, beating the 11-12 percent from leftie Jean-Luc Melenchon, but real-life results put her closer to 20 percent.
Sarkozy's camp had been stressing a win in Sunday's first round was crucial to the president, to give him a hope of winning in the run-off. "Given these results, Sarkozy is finished", says political analyst Gerard Grunberg. A straight run-off on 6 May is now expected to bring Hollande 55 percent, giving him the presidential prize. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 23/04/2012 |
It's grim ooop north (2)
Sunday 22 April 2012
Struggling through the smog and the dense clouds of boiler ash and smuts, this week we penetrated into the outskirts of a village called Wearldley, just north of Leeds. Readers need to avert their eyes if they can't take in the horror of it all, but somebody had to do it - tell the world how bad it is ooop 'ere in West Yorkshire.
     
Then, just as we were getting to the really bad bits, the batteries ran out on the camera and, so primitive and desolate were it that there weren't a Co-op to be seen. We'll have to save it for next week.
Richard North 22/04/2012 |
Beyond help
Sunday 22 April 2012
I don't as a rule read d'Ancona - he rarely has anything of interest to say and is so locked in the Westminster bubble that his analyses are valueless.
However, one could not avoid a smile in passing as he too joins in the UKUP-bashing, even while the paper is giving space to an interview to Farage, asking if he is poised for and election breakthrough. Obviously, CCHQ must believe this might be the case, otherwise it is hard to see why they would be instructing their pals in the Failygraph to go into attack-dog mode. At such pains is d'Ancona to comply with his masters that he resurrects the canard about the Conservative Party needing to take over the centre ground in order to come within striking distance of an overall majority. We are told that many "Conservatives" hate this and get furious when reminded of it, but what d'Ancona then asserts as "the truth" isn't so. By shifting to his idea of the middle ground, Cameron managed to lose a sure-fire victory against one of the most unpopular governments in living memory. "Anyone who thinks that the party will achieve an outright majority by fighting a campaign dominated by Europe, immigration and aggressive small-state conservatism hasn't paid much attention to recent political history", proclaims d'Ancona, adding: "Or to anything else". Such supreme arrogance can only be fortified by the most tremendous ignorance, for all the indications are that the electorate reacts most adversely to politicians when they occupy the same ground, and there is no difference between them. That is what this piece and this one were all about. I would not mind the dogmatism of the d'Ancona tendency of it explored its own mantras occasionally, and sought to explain the inconsistencies in them. But, instead, they merely repeat them until they become the received wisdom within the bubble, whence the expect everyone else to fall into line and believe. The funny thing is that, whenever the Tories are in trouble, they always believe it is a communication problem. We have failed to understand them, and if only they explain themselves a little better to us simpletons, then everything will come right. Despite events time and again proving them to be wrong, nothing changes – their opinions are not so much frozen as ossified. Which means that d'Ancona's chums will not only continue to lose, but they will also fail to understand why they are losing. They are beyond help, because they cannot even begin to understand that they are wrong. COMMENT THREAD |
Posts
