Nats wiped out in Lyne, big swing against Libs in Mayo

Interesting stuff happening in the two federal by-elections tonight. It’s all over red rover for the Nats candidate in Mark Vaile’s old seat of Lyne, Rob Drew, who’s on about 22% of the primary vote - a swing against the Nationals of over 30%. With two thirds of the vote counted, Independent Rob Oakeshott has romped in with nearly 64% of the primary vote counted so far.

The Nats are now down to a historic low of nine seats in the House of Representatives.

In Mayo, there’s a swing against the Liberals of around 11%, with the Greens’ Lynton Vonow polling strongly. So are former Liberal Bob Day and Independent Di Bell. The Libs’ primary is just over 40% and around 20% of the vote has been counted. I don’t know enough about the electorate to say anything about which booths have reported, but you could foresee a scenario where the Libs lose or are run close with a primary like that. It doesn’t appear to have changed much with more booths reporting since I’ve been watching. At the time of writing, the AEC is putting the 2PP at 52/48 Liberals - Greens.

It looks like a smart tactical decision for Labor not to run in either of these safe conservative electorates, and although no doubt local factors are the key to the results, it’ll be fascinating to see how the results are spun tomorrow, particularly since they’re probably going to be roped in with the WA result, whatever that turns out to be. I wonder whether Brendan Nelson spent much time campaigning in Mayo.

You can follow the count at the AEC’s virtual tally room - for Lyne and for Mayo. The Poll Bludger has open threads as well - for Lyne and Mayo respectively.

Update: The Liberals have claimed victory in Mayo. It’s possible but unlikely that postals and other pre-poll and absentee votes might change the picture if Independent Di Bell can get ahead of the Greens’ Lynton Vonow. On votes counted to date the Liberals have 51.74% of the 2PP vote, with the Greens on 48.26%. It’s a big slap in the face for the Libs, whichever way you look at it.

Share this... These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • e-mail

118 Responses to “Nats wiped out in Lyne, big swing against Libs in Mayo”


  1. 1 RxNo Gravatar

    Going by how Steve Fielding votes with the Liberals in the Senate … and how Bob Day went from the Liberals to Family First, I see FF as little more than an off-shoot of the Libs. A swing from Lib to FF therefore isn’t a big deal in my book; it is just conservative voters going for Option B instead of A.

  2. 2 KimNo Gravatar

    But why? It’s still surely significant that they’re deserting the Liberal Party.

  3. 3 professor ratNo Gravatar

    While it is good news that the Gnats are now straining like DLP and Democrat humps there remains an incontinent elephant in the room…that is the relative poor showing of social-democracy. Psychologically they are still getting played like chumps by the most feeble of split senile oppositions. Why is this so?

    When democratic-socialism stands ready to inherit the world what on earth holds them back?

    To be rudely blunt - whats wrong with you fucking pussies!!?

    Why can’t take you take power when its given to youse!

  4. 4 TerryNo Gravatar

    I wonder how the ute men of Mayo voted. Have they gone Green this time? Where is Glenn Milne to channel the thinking of the Bundy & Coke folk of the Adelaide Hills?

  5. 5 RxNo Gravatar

    Yes, it’s interesting as to why. Maybe they’re not deserting, perhaps just a vacation (till Brendan is given his marching orders?)

  6. 6 KimNo Gravatar

    There’s got to be a bit of a backlash against (a) Dolly for causing the by-election; and (b) the candidate Jamie Briggs who’s from right wing apparatchik central casting - Howard’s IR advisor. Although it’s the Libs who are usually the ones who claim Labor promotes too may political staffers, their ranks are full of them too.

  7. 7 Andrew ENo Gravatar

    The significant Lib failure here is Lyne. The Libs were always quite sanguine about the Nats losing seats to independents, as the assumption was that increasing urbanisation in rural seats made the Liberal Party the natural party of urban right-of-centre votes.

    Mind you, conservatives have been saying this for 20 years, since Joh was forced out and the Qld Nats would implode. It’s testament to (I would have said indictment of) the poor strategy within the Liberal Party that they don’t have a significant presence in northern NSW, and weren’t in a position to make the Nats beg in forming the LNP in Queensland.

    Yeah, Briggs is the rightwing apparatchik from central casting, but I can’t see their Labor equivalents whipping up a convincing scare campaign that resonates with voters. Liberals would see Briggs as a potential minister going forward and once he’s in, he’ll be there until he’s as old as Downer is now (fewer fishnet-related or things-that-batter-style incidents perhaps, but you never know).

  8. 8 DJANGO REINHARDTNo Gravatar

    Well, third effort writing tonight (wonder when the censor will hit) -
    The best chance for ‘congress’, ‘parliament’ - a voice for the people is to forever keep the overweening bastards who pretend they speak for the populace - is to keep them forever divided.
    Howard somehow achieved control over funding and therfore screwed the labor states (YES, lower case intended).

    Meanwhile Kevin’s wick has already burned thin!

    Now we have a labor Federal Parliament - those same peasants (like this writer) SHALL exercise their insignificant power by voting against those affiliated with those they have placed, a few months before, in the Federal arena.
    Of course the vote will now go against labor in the states.
    Why?
    Because career politicians have repeatedly proven their worth by making statements, promises they have no right or power to keep - but nonetheless proven their worth by always, inevitably countering their promises.
    And while this stupid game continues - a populace of over 20 millions, almost completely devoid of organisation within itself has to keep on outguessing and second-guessing a mob of greedy, stupid, self interested carreer ‘politicians’ who mostly do not ever engage with their constituents.
    Summary -
    Until this nation either -
    1 - Collapses.
    2 - Establishes a ‘Full House’ CHARTER of RIGHTS and/or -
    3 - Becomes incorporated under a Republic of some sort -
    It is best that the only minimal power ordinary people hold - that is to vote in the states against the federal power and Federally against the state’s power - be forever maintained in such precarious balance.

    It also has to be said what a complete waste of time and money all that is.

  9. 9 KimNo Gravatar

    Dude, it might be nice if you were on topic AND LOST THE CAPS.

  10. 10 cosmicjesterNo Gravatar

    how will those big anti-coalition swings fit into jilie bishops narrative of an anti-Labor sentiment that is not showing up in the opinion polls?

  11. 11 Lefty ENo Gravatar

    Exactly Comicjester: these results clearly point to a massive loss of faith in the LNP under Nelson and Bishop.

    OH hang on, that WAS showing up in the polls ;)

  12. 12 KimNo Gravatar
  13. 13 MarkNo Gravatar

    Update: The Liberals have claimed victory in Mayo. It’s possible but unlikely that postals and other pre-poll and absentee votes might change the picture if Independent Di Bell can get ahead of the Greens’ Lynton Vonow. On votes counted to date the Liberals have 51.74% of the 2PP vote, with the Greens on 48.26%. It’s a big slap in the face for the Libs, whichever way you look at it.

  14. 14 paul walterNo Gravatar

    I can’t see the Mayo result as being anything BUT a kick up the butt for Nelson and Minchin. It’s south eastern “leafy” Adelaide; nearest the Murray and the Lakes, of Adelaide’s electorates.
    They are old style libs; plenty of doctors wives and well-educated enough to be left cold be tabloid politics, as the performance of the Greens and other progressives indicates.

  15. 15 MattNo Gravatar

    In the final days of the Mayo campaign a pamphlett was mailed out from Liberal Party headquarters on Greenhill road. It read like an Excluive Brethren trashing of the greens with the standard “they’ll legalise drugs, Brown’s a homosexual, etc”
    It looked like an Exclusive Brethren pamphlett, it read like an exclusive Brethren pamphlett but it was authorized by a Liberal head honcho, not the liberal party.
    Even though, as said, it was fromk the Liberal’s Greenhill road headquarters.
    My suspicion is that yet again the Liberals have found a way to get the Exclusive Brethren to pay for their advertising, through a proxy.

  16. 16 Jim McDonaldNo Gravatar

    It could still swing either way. But it’s interesting with seven thousand or so votes for the FF candidate, that is deemed by some pundits to be the case. Linked textDi Bell ran a very good campaign. The Libs can seek little solace in the result [-11%]. And the former Labor candidate, whom everybody seems to have forgotten about, brought few Labor votes across [2.4%] and the Democrats’ slide out of Federal politics is complete. So, it’s open that the Greens could get in.

  17. 17 Jack StrocchiNo Gravatar

    mark says:

    It’s a big slap in the face for the Libs, whichever way you look at it.

    Thats putting a hopeful spin on events. Its difficult to draw proper conclusions about the two-horse party race from these by-elections when one horse fails to show up in both of them.

    On a more substantial front, the LP appears to have won the WA state election. This comes on the back of massive anti-ALP swings in both NT and the Gippsland federal by-election.

    I trust that this spells the doom for the “End of the LP” meme that was circulating here and at Pr Quiggins site a little while back. This was always a nonsense based on the Left triumphalism generated by Rudd’s moderate victory in the 2008 federal election. A psephological mis-reading, which shows the uselessness of so called “qualitative” research (ie spin).

    Rudd admitted the ALP’s federal position was not invincible in the after-math:

    He reminded all and sundry that federal Labor’s margin over the Opposition was hardly commanding and Labor would lose next time “with a small swing against us”.

    I pointed this out at the time:

    do not think the Liberal party is on its last legs, although the Nationals look a bit shaky.

    When the ALP was down many Right wingers hopped onto the bandwagon and attempted to play the “ALP is doomed” tune. Likewise many Left wingers are trying the same thing on now that the LN/P are down.

    The worm always turns.

    But the Left blogosphere was too busy congratulating itself on bettering the Oz’s political analysts to see the bigger picture. Setting the pseph bar rather low, I thought.

    The LN/P lost all state govt power in 2002. Not surprising as it is the Natural Party of Opposition at the state level.

    Still the ALP is not much loved at this level and people do get sick of the same old machine operator faces. The electoral pendulum always swings back, and the party duopoly is as strong in politics as Coles-Safeways duopoly is in retail, Telstra-Optus in telcom and the Big Four in banking.

    I am willing to bet $100 to all comers that the LP will form govt in one of the state jurisdictions (VIC, TAS, QLD, SA) before the NSW election in 2011. (Which the LP will also win, probably in a land-slide.)

  18. 18 DavidNo Gravatar

    Paul @ 14 - it’s not all leafy eastern suburbs. A fair chunk of it (like where I was handing out Greens how-to-votes at Cudlee Creek) is Playford Country (where Julie Bishop hails from, apparently) - apple and cherry growers, dairies, etc.

  19. 19 RebekkaNo Gravatar

    “It looked like an Exclusive Brethren pamphlett, it read like an exclusive Brethren pamphlett but it was authorized by a Liberal head honcho, not the liberal party.”

    My understanding of the Electoral Act is that electoral materials HAVE to be authorised by an individual, and are never authorised by a party. So not surprising that the anti-Greens Party pamphlet was authorised by a Liberal head honcho - they always are.

  20. 20 LiamNo Gravatar

    Matt and Rebekka

    An electoral advertisement may not be printed, published or distributed unless the name and street address (not a postal box number) of the author, or the person authorising its publication appears at the end of it.

  21. 21 RebekkaNo Gravatar

    Yes, quite, the PERSON authorising it, not the party!

    Thus all of Labor’s materials produced centrally in the last election were authorised by Tim Gartrell, Liberal materials in Vic were authorised by Julian Sheezel, etc etc.

    Reading a conspiracy into an individual rather than the party authorising materials is clearly ludicrous.

  22. 22 KimNo Gravatar

    In the Brisbane Central by-election in Queensland last year, the ALP was quite capable of putting out “extreme Green” leaflets without any assistance from the Exclusive Brethren!

  23. 23 paul walterNo Gravatar

    They are all scabs, anyway.

  24. 24 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    David,

    were you really heading out to Cudlee Creek? How romantic. IMO that beats that place out west of Sydney - Rooty Hill - into a cocked hat.

  25. 25 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    In Lyne,

    both Ute Man and Ute Woman have spoken. The Ute kids aren’t allowed to vote. Pundits all, please explain.

  26. 26 Klaus KnnoppkeNo Gravatar

    ” Kim
    Sep 6th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
    Dude, it might be nice if you were on topic AND LOST THE CAPS.”

    Dear Kimmie,
    Reply yours -
    I have numerous caps; some bearing badges of the famous regiments.
    A belt buckle I have too - it reads - “DURCH SEIG UND RUHM MIT ELLIOTT”.
    Do you resent good Germans fighting to save Gibraltar under the command of an notorious English Poofta?
    Why do you suggest I lose them?
    I even have a Kapps Grand Piano.
    It is, unfortunately, forever out of tune - though still beautiful to look at but like me etwas old.
    One cannot either have good servicemen anymore in Australia.
    The youth, in this regard refuse to serve. The payment, the Geld, they always want.

    And so it appears for decent politicians.
    It wass easy once back in the old country before THAT happened - but these days here it all costs too much.

    But here I tried to influence decisions as there.

    Then I said to him - Look Ado, what’s this Leader thing.
    Instead why not try being a FATHER to the Reich?
    But never do they take notice, here or there? Not HIM ever and here the same.

    But in my new country at least the voters, in their interest, have decided well.

    The ‘National’ is in their name but rejected.
    It is, in any case, reminding me of the badges on those old caps.
    And the policies of Pauline - much the same ‘zeitgeist’.
    Perhaps an ‘underground’they will forge, like the Schlepp now, back in the Fatherland.

    Now there after reunification it is as strong almost as the good days.
    Believe me Kimmie when I say it would have been good to introduce you to the boys then -
    If tuning the piano they had you not, afterwards the singing you would find easy.

    Gruss Gott.
    Klaus

  27. 27 Sam CliffordNo Gravatar

    Gippsland saw an anti-Labor swing, Lyne and Mayo saw an anti-Coalition swing and Rudd’s still streaks ahead of Nelson. The Greens picked up the biggest swing across the state of Western Australia. People hate the major parties but, federally, they hate the ALP less than they hate the Coalition. It would be nice if we had an electoral system where a lack of support for major parties translated into a lack of seats.

  28. 28 DavidNo Gravatar

    Ambigulous, Cudlee Creek is more bucolic charm than romance.

  29. 29 DJANGO REINHARDTNo Gravatar

    It may be that Herr Knopke is a South Australian.
    Reading between his lines his politics appear conservative.
    Is it possible to be ‘National’ and a socialist at the same time?
    And yet he supports a ‘pinko’ like me.
    What is occurring in Australia that most affects politics is demographics change and the pace of life.
    Klaus seems to recognise that and refers obliquely to a person who, shall we say, enforced demographics change in Eorope a few years back and almost in the same breath suggests a more recent near miss with potential totalitarianism here in Australia.
    He also hints darkly to Kim about how power was abused in his youth.

    It is significent that Howard adopted some of the One Nation policies and left it up to Philip Ruddock to enforce a fair deal of it.
    This is primarily why many Australians vote labor - in the vain hope that the party will restore some of our liberties.
    And since so many southern traditional labor voters and their son’s and daughters are being forced out of cities into the regions - it may be that either -
    1 - The major parties will have to change their attitudes and core policies drastically; or -
    2 - the states be abolished and replaced with something like the Swiss Canton system; or -
    3 - the whole political shower resign en-masse so we can start afresh.
    All of which leads to what Sam Clifford said above. Well said Sam.

  30. 30 FDBNo Gravatar

    Django… mate, you’ve got to stop explaining your own sockpuppetry.

    It is unseemly.

  31. 31 STEFAN GRAPPELLINo Gravatar

    Doesn’t he need an alter ego to sockpuppet?

    LIKE THIS?

  32. 32 Jean-Luc Pontificates, Then From The Altar EgosNo Gravatar

    Klaus Knnoppke = DJANGO REINHARDT

    [= Greenfield, actually making an effort for once?]

  33. 33 DJANGO REINHARDTNo Gravatar

    “Django… mate, you’ve got to stop explaining your own sockpuppetry.”

    Dear FDB,
    Re - your’s above.
    Has the world become such a serious place that someone cannot relate the present with the past and at least try to do that in an entertaining way.
    I find that J. Fitzgibbon would like to have the states abolished and hear that the conservatives are very afraid about the demographics changes.
    This means I hold similar views to people in both sides of politics.
    Which also demonstrates how intentionally limited having two rigid party structures is for the country.
    Then history - recall - experience. The infant that burns it’s fingers on a hot stove usually remains cautious about heat.
    It is a stupid politician who doesn’t consider past mistakes.
    I discuss in my last some matters I believe important that are, in any case, germane to the recent by-elections and instead of reasoned comment some bloke accuses me of being a puppeteer?
    Okay, I’ll admit; old Klaus comes over for a few beers and occasionally uses my e-mail.We had a great laugh as he wrote his and I helped with his spelling.
    But what did FDB mean ?
    He’s maybe prejudiced in that he doesn’t like New Australians of German background?
    Didn’t like Klaus’ opinions?
    Does FDB want to ban freedom of association?
    What?

  34. 34 Liam POPS A CAPS LOCK IN YO ASSNo Gravatar

    I thought it was GMB, but seemed too coherent and not angry enough.

  35. 35 Bingo Bango BoingoNo Gravatar

    Liam, his/her posts do not: [a] reference “multi-metals-backed currency”, “fiat-money” or “homesteading”; [b] assert the existence of any “science-fraud”; or [c] call for any EVIDENCE! to be produced. I can’t see how you came up with GMB, even if just for a few moments.

    BBB

  36. 36 Brutal And Pulverising Nano-Rod Pyramids On MarsNo Gravatar

    The vanity and the obsession with Kim/Kimmie in posts she has little or nothing to do with made me think JG, but he’s always so transparent.

  37. 37 Ms Berella the Well Known Pirate QueenNo Gravatar

    It’s a possibility that there are more than two trolls out there in intertubes land, folks!

  38. 38 A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre of the UltraworldNo Gravatar

    FDB: D’oh, teach me not to scroll up.

    I don’t think Greenfield’s capable of going three sentences clauses without popping into a bookies and putting extra tickets on himself.

  39. 39 The One-Legged Presybterian Boiler Suited Sky PilotNo Gravatar

    Roger that.

  40. 40 Warwick CAPSLOCK, #39, Full ForwardNo Gravatar

    BBB, it was the carbon stuff and the “GMBH” that suggested the feathered one to me.

  41. 41 CAPO Di Tutti CAPINo Gravatar

    Yes, I think Li’l Kim is right. We’ve got a live one.

    BTW, what do you do with the spare leg of your boiler suit?

    Enquiring minds, etc.

  42. 42 Lost her leg in a zombie attack!No Gravatar

    Why, it conceals my machine gun leg of course!

  43. 43 But You Can Leave Your CAPS LOCK ONNo Gravatar

    Ah, Ms. Berella, that’s a lovely Chicago piano you’ve got there. But can you dance to the tune?

  44. 44 CAPSLOCK, STOCK AND BARRELNo Gravatar

    Enquiring mind sated.

  45. 45 NOBODY DON'T DANCE NO MORENo Gravatar

    #43 - Heh!

  46. 46 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    too much CAPITALS punishment hereabouts.

    Thanks for the News from Cudlee Creek, David.

    cheerio

  47. 47 ReinhardtNo Gravatar

    Reinhardt and Herr Knnoppke have met again tonight.

    A few beers, we’ve had.

    The old bloke has tears in his eyes but he agrees - sod you bastards.
    How much crap must a bloke put up with in this life while trying to convey the message of life?

    We’ve reviewed what we’ve seen of your effort and decided your turnout is not worth the bother.

    We’ve both tried to reason with a Kim or Kimmie - who we’d originally believed was Korean - but looking into your files - Kim is in Klaus’ terms someone from the ’shadow world’ (my translation after wrangling out his experience of that sort from old Berlin)- then someone else who doesn’t like the useage of upper case for accent - and some other complete idiot who just likes shouting newcomers down.

    What a welcome you offer newcomers. Such welcome. You do well.

    Then you profess all these attributes - that upon investigation of your own files amount to the same dreary, endless squawking of - ducks.
    Your lot squawk like ducks but insist we speak succinctly.
    Why bother when only ducks - read? CAN DUCKS READ?

    So pre-emptively you have been moderated by us both - as comletely beneath OUR threshold of interest.

    Such a shame for you.
    But who would want to compete with quacking ducks?

    A voice for free speech you claim - pigshit, we say!

    New Caledonia awaits us and there the girls are more friendly.

    “As full of shit as an egg of meat” is our decision about those, other than the very few who welcomed our messages at your pages.
    Auf Wiedersehen arschlosche!

  48. 48 LeinadNo Gravatar

    You’ll be back.

  49. 49 Korean grocery shop trashed by zombie terror!No Gravatar

    I think not.

  50. 50 Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fieldsNo Gravatar

    Steps were taken?

  51. 51 Emerging from the shadow worldNo Gravatar

    By my hydraulic knee, yes!

  52. 52 a total waste of time / my iron lungNo Gravatar

    Ah well, it was FUN while it LASTED!

  53. 53 Thom YorkeNo Gravatar

    I have to agree with this Leinad chap, he seems a herculean exemplar of all that is right and common sensical!

  54. 54 Someone Else EntirelyNo Gravatar

    I’m an FDB man myself.

  55. 55 1 CAPSLOCKINTHIANSNo Gravatar

    If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a squawking duck.

  56. 56 naskingNo Gravatar

    “Dude, it might be nice if you were on topic AND LOST THE CAPS.”

    Kim, you’re a control freak

  57. 57 adrian the control freakNo Gravatar

    Oh come on nasking, speaking as something of a control freak myself, a genuine control freak would not allow, let alone encourage the chaos above!

  58. 58 CAP'n BazarovNo Gravatar

    Kim, you’re a control freak

    No, you are WRONG. Kim is a Super Freak.

  59. 59 Pavlov's CatNo Gravatar

    Adrian the control freak is correct.

    Nasking and whoever that other chap is: like most other people I simply don’t read comments full of caps, which are generally considered shouting and are almost always signs (as with shouting) that the comment won’t be entirely rational. Can I suggest (without attempting to control or condemn, you understand) that it’s a simple matter of cause and effect, and that if one wants people to actually read one’s comments then the lavish use of eccentric typography is probably not the way to go?

  60. 60 naskingNo Gravatar

    “a genuine control freak would not allow, let alone encourage the chaos above!”

    lol…I’d be interested in seeing if Kim or someone else on Lav Prod picks up on the Origin gas deal w/ ConocoPhillips in America. As a Queenslander who is now paying thru the nose for gas & electricity (including wind power) I’m pretty pissed:

    On May 10, 2006, Richard Armitage, former deputy-secretary of the U.S. State Department, was elected to the board of directors of the ConocoPhillips oil company.

    A recent University of Massachusetts study has ranked ConocoPhillips third among U.S. corporate producers of air pollution. According to the researchers, ConocoPhillips facilities release more than eight million pounds of toxic chemicals annually into the air. The company has also been implicated in some of the United States’ worst toxic waste dumps; the Center for Public Integrity has announced that United States Environmental Protection Agency documents link ConocoPhillips to 52 Superfund sites.
    (Wiki pedia)

    SHOW ME THE MONEY

    as for the Libs & Nats at a national level…be scared…be very scared…changes coming everywhere. My wife’s family are primarily Nats (a few swung to Labor to bounce out Howard & Workchoices) and some said recently they have no time for anyone in the major parties who looks to be screwing them over w/ water, health costs, food costs and such…& they aren’t too happy about the way pensioners & small farmers are being treated…they see the Libs, Nats & Labor nationally as in the pockets of big business & the top end of town. And I haven’t heard them more critical of America in years. I meet the entire family in a couple of weeks & can’t wait to get some feedback. After a few beers it all rolls out.

    N’

  61. 61 CAPS LOCKING & POPPINGNo Gravatar

    A super freak or a super villain, Captain Terwilliger?

  62. 62 naskingNo Gravatar

    Pavlov’s Cat, here’s a bit of advice for you…check out this article on the evolution of the Slow Food Movement/Nation in America:

    http://www.counterpunch.com/bliss09032008.html

    (Counterpunch, September 3, 2008,
    65,000 Show Up for an Edible Education
    A Field Report from Slow Food Nation
    By SHEPHERD BLISS)

    “Come to the table,” Slow Food Nation invited. And come to San Francisco over Labor Day weekend they did—around 50,000 people, making it perhaps the largest food celebration in American history.

    Tables and straw bales appeared in the heart of the city’s Civic Center around a victory garden on about a quarter of an acre that was formerly a lawn. It was surrounded by a huge marketplace, which was like an old-fashioned farmers’ market that gets food directly from the farm to the fork.

    ———

    with the cost of food & the crap money supermarkets pay farmers I wonder if this movement will take off here? I could see the Nats & Greens coming together on this issue.

    COOL
    N’

  63. 63 Lefty ENo Gravatar

    i lIKE tHE fREAKY tOOGLE rANSOM nOTE fEEL mYSELF

  64. 64 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    Reinhardt, ist ‘arschloche’ Deutch fuer ‘areseholes’? How dare you swear here!! Begone, knave.

  65. 65 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    when I was a little boy, me and the other little boys played with Cap Guns

    - not much has changed in {nominate large number of decades} -

  66. 66 ALL YOUR CAPS ARE BELONG TO USNo Gravatar

    Did you ever buy a whole packet of caps and chuck them in the campfire when your year 6 teacher had just nodded off though?

    I guess the tortured analogy equivalent would be Greenfield repeatedly fouling a thread when the mods are all busy.

  67. 67 adrianNo Gravatar

    Not a good analogy AYCABTU, since the campfire scenario involves at least a slight frission of excitement for the little boys concerned.

    I can assure you that the slime’s posts in contrast promote nothing more than extreme boredom, bordering on ennui in this little boy.

    Don’t you agree that the use of assonance is a lost art that I incidentally have done nothing to revive.

  68. 68 Cognitive AssonanceNo Gravatar

    Bring it back I say Adrian, but beware and take care there; by the third word it turns, curdled, into a turgid turd.

  69. 69 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    AYCABTU - nuh, we never did. But those “penny bungers” were shockin’ awful, and legend had them let off in folks’ letterboxes (or in England, dropped into the letter slot in someone’s front door.) This was before teh terrorism, it is said.

    Even those tiny sets of crackers that jumped around on the ground as they went off serially, were very fine entertainment, though not as loud. :-) S’pose you had to be there.

  70. 70 Cognitive AssonanceNo Gravatar

    I got stories Ambi.

    My Dad was shot at by his uncle using a homemade Penny Bunger Gun [metal bike pump tube, drop bomb in first, pull fuse through little hole, then in goes cotton wadding, then marble or ball-bearing just smaller than the diameter of the tube]. He was inside looking out though the window, and the ball bearing went through the glass, then through the door and back of the wardrobe across the room, then through the render on the wall, and made a crater in the brick underneath.

    There was, naturally, hell to pay.

  71. 71 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    Cognitive,

    that was the trouble with them parents, eh? A boy is just explorin’ the physical properties of the known world: strength of materials, conversion of chemical energy into kinetic; much as ole’ Benjie Franklin was just seein’ if lightning really WAS made from ‘lectricalicity; and the first tiny little tichy miscalculation, and yer hauled before the bloody Star Chamber as if yer some kind of homicidal lunatic…..

    Close call fer yer uncle, but
    And ter think, yer Dad might never growed up and had little Assonances, and the world woulda been a poorer place.

    Do they call ya Coggie or Coggno??

  72. 72 FDBNo Gravatar

    Gah! Moniker madness!

    Uncle Rob had the stellar Star Chamber defence - “I didn’t think it would work that well”. Justice was swift and merciless on that side of the family. I think that’s when it was decided he’d go to Dental School. Though that might have been more of a Little Shop of Horrors thing.

  73. 73 SOY CAPITÁN, SOY CAPITÁNNo Gravatar

    Do they call ya Coggie or Coggno

    The latter might earn you a sharp reaction in any Spanish speaking country, Ambi and FDB. Just so you know.

  74. 74 The Tempeh Of The TimesNo Gravatar

    Duly noted Cap’n.

    What’s the gist?

  75. 75 AmbigulousNo Gravatar

    co~o

    where ~ stands for a little ‘n’ with a little squiggle above it; it’s a VERY rude word. Amazingly, it seems to trip off the tongues of blokes in Spanish films, like we might say “bastard” - and yet its equivalent in English is the Last Taboo.

    Excuse me, Mr Assonance, but I didn’t mean Coggno to be read as a Spanish word. Sorry.

    The other thinng I like about LP is this swerving off into strange realms from a perfectly absorbing byelection discussion.

  76. 76 FDBNo Gravatar

    Thanks Ambi. The double ‘g’ threw me. As you were.

  77. 77 kLAUS KNOPPKKE DR.ING.No Gravatar

    Nyet. you all have it wrong. I am not one of you own incestuous little set playing games with you.
    It is amazing, I find that someone ELSE writing in uzing the big Kapps has you all accusing the other. What with the Kapps is the problem?
    A fine piano, I tell you.

    So I have a funny accent. So what!
    Look at the record, above, of your stumbles. Does it to the ‘thread’ make sense?
    Has anyone addressed the question myself and poor Django raised about doing better in Parliament?
    Nein.
    He sais a word. I said a word. You dont want to hear other fellows words?
    Is that what your blog iss?
    Ans some other fool (iss that the vord), takes Django to task - ‘three little historische examples’. So what does he do, our Django? Write “The world history for schmecks” in three sentences?

    Some worthy person tries to change the subject.
    What happens? More blutig chooks kackling iss what happens.
    And I am accosted for speaking as best I can.
    You see poor Django last night got too pissed. We today missed the boat to New Caledonia.
    I visit him today this machine is still vorking at your site but he is on the floor still sleeping off that hang off (entschuldigung sie mich bitte) a vomit crisis.
    The poor man; the cat has eaten one of his toes!
    Ah. He stirs and grimaces.
    But to keep in direction of the tread I goggled the matter raised by the subject changer.
    Ja. He is right another auslander firm (if such appellation is applied) will screw the taxpayer blind again.
    It makes sense; nichts wahr?
    None of you yoyos has a clue about what makes oligarchy tick.
    So, until we catch the next boat we are here again.
    PS. We are none of your mates playing with you. Okay.
    You do that in private. We haff broad minds so long ass you play with yourselfs.
    Gruss Gott -
    Knoppkke

  78. 78 LeinadNo Gravatar

    Called it.

  79. 79 LauraNo Gravatar

    I am not one of you own incestuous little set playing games with you

    Technically you are. As you’re here and all.

  80. 80 ZwilnikNo Gravatar

    Ho ho skonky ho and hah. So Knob.Drink.ing is yet another foolish Tellurian who thinks he/she/it is gameplayer part excellence?

    But you are less than one of your sanitary Dutch letters discarded after momentary exchange of Saliva-Cola and other Red Bull bodily fluids in optics of one who plays for the keep in inner council of Boskone.

    And where are underfooted council rivals now? Administratively restructured into Lethal Chambers, that is where. Laugh? I nearly spared a slave.

    Now I am back sitting on greasy pole, turning again vast, cool unintelligence on Tellus and all its juicy juicy 3-D cup spoils.

    I am keeping special place open in chrysolite mines for you Knob.Drink.ing when glorious day of Tellus liberation into Boskone co-prosperity sphere dawns.

    Are we out? Mike dead? Good! Someone take this *untranslatable* neural communicator out of my *untranslatable* now! Next time Helmuth we go back to the cue boards and crib notes on the tentacles.

  81. 81 FDBNo Gravatar

    I find him quite entertaining.

    Don’t go changin’ Klaus/Django, save between the two.

  82. 82 The real LP klaus kNo Gravatar

    You go away for a weekend and suddenly everybody tries to muscle in on your turf.

  83. 83 LiameninemNo Gravatar

    Would the real LP Klaus K please stand up?
    I’m with FDB, let’s have more Klausplay—after all, it takes two to Django.

  84. 84 In The Djingle Djangle Morning I'll Come Following YouNo Gravatar

    “Would the real LP Klaus K please stand up?”

    A blog duel for the moniker ‘Klaus’?
    That’s enough to make anyone grouse.
    But this tiff’s gotten boring
    Whilst K.K. was off touring:
    “If it’s Tuesday, then this must be Laos.”

  85. 85 I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinnedNo Gravatar

    You may think that rhyming grouse,
    With the word of the country Laos.
    Is clever or smart
    For a boring old fart
    Who wouldn’t know his Marx from his Mao.

  86. 86 GangaDjangNo Gravatar

    Nice to have met with you Klaus
    But then before we knew it you’re aus
    Then we had Django
    But where did this man go?
    Sind Sie zwei Männer oder ein Maus?

  87. 87 Pavlov's CatNo Gravatar

    Punch line: 12/10.

  88. 88 Djang! Djang! Go the Djail Guitar DoorsNo Gravatar

    “Is clever or smart
    For a boring old fart…”

    Well, there’s “Klaus K” and then there is “Klaus Who?”
    A conundrum most worthy of Lao-Tzu.
    But good taste –hey, comprende–
    Likes its rhymes done al dente.
    QUICK HINT: “Libra” is better than “Mao II”.

  89. 89 FDBNo Gravatar

    PC:

    *doffs cap*

    Astute and/or German readers will note I’ve got an internationally recognised Poetic License. Not gonna let a silly ol’ thing like gender get in the way of me scansion.

  90. 90 Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot controlNo Gravatar

    DDD etc

    Please try to forget about Klaus
    And maybe show some remorse
    For the crimes against rhyme
    And meaning sublime
    That your warped syntax does force.

    And please FDB advise,
    If it’s right for me to surmise
    That your licence expired
    When it seems you were mired
    In a scandal involving fast fries.

  91. 91 FDBNo Gravatar

    Dear Leonard:

    I think Haiku form
    Best expresses my feelings
    Viz: WTF d00d?

  92. 92 Those Old Die-Hards In Djenmark Street Djstart Djlaughing At The Keyboard Player's Djhollow Djhaunted EyesNo Gravatar

    “That your warped syntax does force.”

    YYWMLE(falls asleep)…

    Of good rhymes you are clearly bereft.
    Plus you scan like your palate is cleft.
    You should not reprimand
    What you don’t understand:
    One man’s ‘warp’ is another man’s weft.

    Gettin’ all ‘classical’ on ya now…

  93. 93 CAP'n BazarovNo Gravatar

    HEH! I’m calling that a smackdown, TKO.

    Toufuckingché…djpz?

  94. 94 Ambigulous