Should Mr. Brown look back over the C&N numbers?
December 2nd, 2009
CON 20,539 votes (14,162)
LAB 12,679 votes (21,240)
LD 6,040 votes (8,083)
The contest, held on 22 May 2008, was the first seat gained by the Tories in a by election since June 1982. The turnout was just 1.8% down on what it had been at the general election.
Mike Smithson
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not 1st
It’s nice to be reminded of what an utterly crass and idiotic rabble Labour have become from time to time.
Must be in the running for worst election leaflet ever.
Us and Them politics. Classy.
today’s PMQs should remind everyone - at least in England - what a nasty rabble the Labour party truly are.
what right does Brown have to demonise someone because their parents chose to send them to a public school?
it’s retarded politics at its very worst.
The C&N by-election defeat had nothing to do with Labour’s crass toffs campaign message and everything to do with voters wanting to give Labour a very hefty kicking. Whatever way they had fought that election Labour would have been heavily defeated. The would probabl still be defeated, but the messag will be different - they say we are all in this together, but look at the tax cuts and breaks they have planned for the very richest. It could play well in some parts of the country and will, at least, shore up the Labour vote. That will mean Labour has a much better chanceof returning to office in 2014 or 2015, which has to be the main strategic goal now I would have thought.
Class warfare is an attempted distraction from the disaster that Labour have created in this country, pure and simple. Frankly it should be ignored for the meaningless distraction it is.
While everyone is rightly criticising the Labour Party for being a bunch of classist yobbos, let’s spare a thought for their Tory rivals, who continue to have senior members of their team siphoning their wealth through offshore accounts in order to avoid paying UK taxes like the “little people”, revel in climate-change denial, and are pushing for tax-cuts for millionaires at the same time as service cuts for the poor. Just for a bit of balance, like…
4.
Well said Bert !
HUGE MISTAKE BROWN HAS MADE!
Yipeeeee
7, is that like siphoning taxpayer funds from flipping or living in Number 11 or 10 whilst claiming the second home allowance?
If millionaires shouldn’t get an IHT cut, why is Labour raising the threshold?
Don’t forget that Timpson is a well known local business family. I’ve had my shoes fixed at their shops on several occasions during my youth. So it was particularly stupid to run it there.
The danger might be what some have said is “The Sun” effect over the letter. People don’t like the personal attacks, witness “Demon Eyes” and the stunning effect it didn’t have. It turns people off. They don’t listen to you. If Brown plugs away at this whilst Cameron focuses on the “issues” then he could look stupidly out of touch.
I saw this on the FT blog about IHT:
“Labour strategists are pushing the issue hard (it has come up again and again at PMQs) because they believe the public agrees with them. Private polling has suggested that 90 per cent of voters dislike the Tory policy on IHT.”
http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2009/12/gordon-brown-comes-out-fighting-on-iht/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ft%2Fwestminster+%28Westminster+Blog%29
Now, if figures are quoted then aren’t the pollsters required to publish?
7 - MBoy are you new here? I warn you that you will be jumped upon and accused of many things now that you have quite rightly pointed out that not everything is sweetness and light with our Tory chums.
5 The tories are allowing the 50p tax band to stand and are prioritising reducing the national insurance increase that Labour are bringing in.
8, that reads a bit Yodaish.
“Criticise Eton you have. A grave mistake this is. For Old Etonians are my allies, and powerful allies they are. Alienating Middle England you are!”
10 - they were crass attacks then and something similar would be crass now. But there is mileage in claims that there is one rule for millionaire backers of the Tories and another rule for everyone else. It’s not about class, it is about fairness. Clearly, we are not all in this together.
“Should Mr. Brown look back over the C&N numbers?”
Yes he should, that attack on the Tory candidate was personal, as well as hoping to catch others like Cameron. It also looked bad attacking the Tories for being Toff’s while shafting the poorest earners. Now lets just remember why Labour might want to go to the polls in March instead of May, they are going to want to avoid people opening those April pay packets before they vote.
According to Kevein Maguires blog, this old Eton/Toff attack was all Gordon Brown’s own work, reminds you of why Blair told him it was mistake when he tried it with the short lived Dave the Chameleon campaign.
5. It was also stupid because in Ed Timpson with his family’s history of philantropy, the Tories had the ideal candidate to repel such attacks. Against a different candidate such a campaign may have some success.
The difference is that this was a by-election. I would suggest that an anti-toff campaign could work in the Labour heartlands which the Tories are not really targeting.
It’s a base camp election strategy but maybe that is the campaign Brown plans to fight.
Some Labour people suggest that they still think the election is there to be won. The attack line on Eton and toffs suggests that the people at the top don’t.
10. Because they are boll*cks
372 FPT- TimT: “352 S&S If you want to read a devastating take on the Obama speech, read Gabor Steingart at Der Spiegel”
Yes, I saw that one too. One fact about U.S. vs. foreign media is quite striking: the harshest print commentary about Obama almost invariably comes from overseas. British publications in particular, and even the left-wing Der Speigel, have shown a willingness to let him have it, to an extent that would seem shocking if it appeared in an American newspaper. That speaks pretty poorly of the lack of print opinion diversity here in the U.S. (there was even an article today from a self-confessed pro-Obamacare journalist in the U.S., complaining about how embarrassing (and embarrassingly inaccurate) the pro-Obamacare shilling has become from many of the most prominent media outlets).
13 - The idea that middle England feels any kind of eotion towards Eton is pretty daft in my book. I just do not think this is an issue beyond the anoraks on either side of the debate.
11 It will rightly be pointed out when the truth is misrepresented. Unfortunately it is a rare occassion when a Labour poster doesn’t exaggeratte or lie. It is understandable as things are so bad and it is their only chance of making a case, but you can’t simply expect people to ignore the lies, this is why this country is in such a dreadful state.
16. My favourite mistake by Labour was criticising the use of a Bentley during the campaign. Sometimes you just can’t believe how clueless they can be.
19 - A supine, unquestioning US media is how Bush got away with so much as well, isn’t it?
Overdoing it a bit Mike? How is this thread any different to the last one?
Another huge strategic error by Brown.He really is a very unpleasant piece of work. The English middle class will punish him for it. Never underestimate how low Labour can sink.
21. Lies = things Tories do not agree with.
“Private polling has suggested that 90 per cent of voters dislike the Tory policy on IHT.”
Oh this is going to be good, makes you wonder how the question was phrased as well.
re 5. The general view at the time of C&N was that the Labour campaign had helped re-energised former Tory voters who had simply not turned out at previous general elections.
That Labour campaign did not stand up to scrutiny because it was a lie.
Tamsin Dunwoody was not one of the Crew “us”.
She lived(s) in a large Welsh rural farmhouse, enjoys horse riding, is not short of a bob or two and from a privileged background . In short she was no different from Mr Timpson her opponent.
22. Ah yes! I wonder what genius thought of that?!
20, people want their kids to go to good schools. Brown is attacking someone for the school (a good one) their parents sent them to.
“Ooh, you’re well-educated!” Masterful.
15 Chris, Alice Thompson makes that point “Class warfare was the tactic that Mr Brown, when he was Chancellor, always wanted Tony Blair to deploy. ”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6939808.ece
As she points out “Labour high command did try to use it last year at the Crewe & Nantwich by-election but attacking the Tories for being toffs was too crude. In the past year the electorate has discovered that the Tory leader has wisteria growing up his house and that Tory grandees still have croquet lawns, moats and chandeliers. Yet it hasn’t made them rush back to Labour.”
She warns “It’s a tacit admission that what he is hoping for is a hung Parliament. He has deserted the “squeezed Middle England….The danger for Labour is that by moving to the left, the Prime Minister leaves the Tories as the party of the centre — from where Tony Blair won three general elections.
12 - And they are planning to cut IHT and lift the tax cap on pensions for the very richest. They are also financed by a man who may or may not pay UK tax, and one of their most prominent parliamentary candidates is a non-dom for tax purposes. But we are all in this together; it’s just that some of us are more in it than others.
26 No lies are lies.
re 27. Whenever you see the term “private polling” then treat with the utmost caution. It is almost always some person or party trying to spin a line.
If they’ve got proper polling and want to make a point then publish it. Otherwise it’s just spin.
If the best they can do is quote Daily Moron (former ed: Piers “Morgan” Moron) then Labour are, indeed, doomed.
5 - Well I am not sure that the general view was correct. Labour was deeply unpopular and got a kicking. Its what happens to unpopular governments, whatever kind of electoral tactics they choose to use.
19. S&S that probably also reflects the fact that the European left probably invested more hope in Obama even than that in the US. Bush was a hate figure of staggering proportions to them and Obama was greeted as something akin to the Messiah.
The problem, as I see it, with this ‘toff’ line of attack is that it is a hostage to fortune. The next Labour leader could well have been educated at, or has their children educated at, a private school. But Brown is only thinking short-term of course.
34 - Not on PB they are not.
25 - The vast majority of the English middle class - of which I am proudly one - have absolutely no interest in Eton whatsoever.
I agree wholeheartedly with Wayne and bert! From the clips I’ve witnessed today of PMQs Brown looked bumptious and snide - a wholly repellent spectacle! As posters will know, I recently been praising the Labour fightback to the hilt, but I fear it’s all gone up in smoke today. A Tory lead of 12 to 14 points in the next set of polls is certainly on the cards.
32.Ted, at some point people are going to remember that the non doms got a good deal under Brown’s stewardship, and its Osborne that wants to tax them more. Why do Labour continue to dig their own holes and then step right into them? The minute I heard Cameron/Goldsmith and ‘the playing fields of Eton’ today, I knew that Gordon had blown all over again.
35 - Mike that’s what I thought, but I’m sure Anthony Wells has said that if figures are mentioned then the British Polling rules are that they should be published. I would love to see the survey (if it exists).
42, disagree there will be a Tory bounce/Labour slump on this. One PMQs will only have that effect if something huge happens. This one may be significant, but it’s not enormous.
The Toff attack didn’t work in Crewe because Timpson wasn’t a toff, and it was a by-election.
It has traction now because there is a Bullingdon/Eton axis at the heart of the Tory party, the tax policies are seen as pro-rich anti-everyone else, and the landed are making large amounts of noise supporting “proper” Tory policies like slashing Capital Gains tax.
A “you’re a toff” argument won’t wash. A “the Tory party hasn’t changed, is still run by the same tiny privaleged minority who plan on feathering their own nests by making you suffer” clearly is washing.
The equally correct revolutionary socialist which can be directed at Darling, or East German/USSR supporter for Brown and most of the nulab high command,is surely more damning than the school you went to.
Is it possible for everyone here to lose?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/02/peter-mandelson-rupert-murdoch-war
27 - Remember private polling apparently has Labour heading for a majority…
46 - Are you confusing Capital Gains tax with Corporation tax?
Mandelson is very unhappy with News International and has declared war on Murdoch - is this the best place to be 6 mnths before an election?
Hope David Roe is well armoured against the Labour incoming, and his colleagues have prepared themselves with articles of war!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/02/peter-mandelson-rupert-murdoch-war
46. Dave Spart lives. The level of self-delusion is remarkable.
41 - If that’s true then it is an even more odd line to take. NPMP has been telling us that his support is holding it up better than WWC, all it risks doing is making him look like a Westminster Village Person. If politics is all about “being in touch” he risks looking distant.
7 - “senior members of their team siphoning their wealth through offshore accounts” - who?
Hmmmm
Joe voter will be confused next Spring at the ballot box.
Labour - implemented the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, invaded two countries illegally, sent our troops to die with inadequate equipment, smeared the mother of a dead soldier, oversaw the biggest boom and bust of all time, lied about being best placed to come out of recession, destroyed the pound against the euro, smeared the families of opposition MPs, had opposition MPs arrested for no reason, rigged a Scottish by-election, kicked the poor in the teeth with 10p tax, detroyed the NHS by pouring money into buildings and admin staff instead of nurses, destroyed our educational system with its endless SATs, allowed unmeasured immigration, took crime to new levels, took youth unemployement to new levels, reinstated the concept of the long term unemployed and the unemployable, sold our gold at the worst possible time and appointed an unelected, bullying, bottling, Scottish PM with mental and physical health problems and subject to periods of depression and anger.
Tories - well educated but a bit posh.
Take your pick.
46, Mr. Bailey, saying to the electorate “Yes, I’m an incompetent, loathsome arse who underfunded the army during a war and f***ed the economy, but my opponent went to a private school” won’t win votes.
Buying envelopes and tippex on the other hand…
48 - One does wonder if Labour have forgotten that Murdoch owns The Times as well as the Sun?
33 “And they are planning to cut IHT”
IHT will affect lots of houses in the south east, there are many areas where £325,00 won’t get you a three bed house.
“lift the tax cap on pensions”
Brown destroyed the pensions system hence most people haven’t got one anymore the tories are planning to reverse this if that is what you mean.
“also financed by a man who may or may not pay UK tax”
Like Lakshi mittal you mean
“one of their most prominent parliamentary candidates is a non-dom for tax purposes. ”
And as you know he pays plenty of tax on his uk earnings.
OT: super random question:
Is Njal’s Saga or Egil’s Saga better? Being asked what I want for Christmas and can’t decide which one I should request.
Labour’s toy throwing over The Sun’s switching continues to amuse. It might get important if Labour win the next election.
Papers can switch back but if this carries on it would seemingly make any rapprochment less likely and more difficult. I don’t really see what Mandelson hopes to gain from this blind fury. It looks jolly petulant.
23 Southam Observer 19 S&S
Pretty much the whole body politic was supine in the run up to Gulf War II - a result of a totally understandable ‘coming together’ in the wake of 9/11 and a totally unacceptable attack of all opposition to the war as being ‘unpatriotic’ (spoken as someone who did support the war and yet still objected at the time to the demonisation of opponents). I don’t think, however, that the MSM could in the remotest way be described as supine during GW’s second term.
I think the situation is different and in some ways more worrying now than then. What is underway now is no less than the complete remaking of America into the European model in a completely partisan way, with no attempt to engage the opposition, and the MSM is not leading a public debate on it, leaving the field to bloggers and radio jocks whom they then marginalise as extremists (which, indeed, some, but not all, of them are). Quite shocking.
4 - “today’s PMQs should remind everyone - at least in England - what a nasty rabble the Labour party truly are.”
Yep, inspired me today - to sign up to help the tories at next election.
38- Maybe it is true that expectations about Obama’s awesomeness were even greater, and more naive, abroad than they were in the U.S., but there is also something else: non-American lefties are not wedded to the Democratic Party. Foreigners will not tend to see American politics and policy so much through a Democrat vs. Republican lens, but rather a left vs. right one. By that measure, foreigners are probably much more apt to pick up on ideological divergences and inconsistencies as well as policy failures, while the American media continue to champion their favorite political parties and see past weaknesses the way football fans root for their favorite teams.
43 That whole rant of Brown’s was one of the most shameless examples of not answering the question that I have seen at PMQ’s. I didn’t think Cameron did at all well today,but he asked a very specific qustion on IHT and I was seething that Brown didn’t even attempt to answer it.
I’m rather looking forward to the big NI Xmas party. Will be interesting to hear people from all the titles’ views on Labour’s emotional breakdown at being dumped.
55 - I guess that’s why they’ll focus on Tory plans to give tax breaks to their rich backers while squeezing services for everyone else to the bone.
39 quite so, short term and short sighted attack.
Not many voters will care where the PM was educated.
Brown hopes people will not be able to identify with Cameron, but it is more likely they will look at their lives and see the difference to Brown himself, a man who felt no compunction about fleecing the taxpayer for a London and now Scottish property when he had access to Grace and Favour property (now properties), a man who has the taxpayer pay for his window cleaning and ironing and has been judged to have overcharged the taxpayer more than £12,000 for ‘cleaning’ and such like. A man who then transferred his taxpayer funded property into his wife’s name and has the audacity to witter on about the Tory’s being out of touch with the common man.
The same man that has made such a cushy living for himself then raised taxation on some of the lowest paid and changed the basic rate to ensure that, amongst others, his backbench MPs were better off on the hard graft of the poor.
But yeah, Cameron went to a good school. Shocking.
Labour should learn its lesson from that crass ignorant and stupid campaign.
1.A nepotistic candidate selection undermined anything they had to say about privilege.
2.Timpsons family were well liked locally and had an admirable record of personal commitment to adoption and such like.
3.The Tories were riding high in the polls and Cameron was untouchable, and uncriticised on his own side. -
The polls running up to that by election put the Tories between 15 and 25% ahead IIRC, so Labours campaign immediately smacked of desperation and the core vote in Crewe knew it.
So what has changed?
1.The polls are narrower.
2.Cameron is weaker in his own party, Europe Climate and the polls have seen to that.
2.The IHT pledge was OK in a boom, but keeping it in a recession while talking about “tough choices and, most stupidly “We’re all in this together” is an open goal.
Its not the wealth, it’s not the schools, its hypocrisy
Hang “We’re all in this together” round Cameron and Osbornes necks until election day.
8 - Wayne, your amongst friends, you can tell us…..
Have you been at Gordon’s medication again? ’cause you are all over the place
If Benedict Brogan is anywhere near correct(see DTOnline)then this class warfare thing is being taken into the area of penal rates of taxation for the wealth creating sector in a big way. The whole NuLab project is being wound down.
Whilst Crewe and Nantwich was a by election and not too much should be extrapolated fom that. I think for Brown to keep banging on about Eton is suicidal with the general public.I really don’t think that people care a hoot about which school Cameron went to.
In the end it will say far more about Brown than ever it will about Cameron if he keeps going on about it.
I always think there is a massive irony within the left in this country who campaign for an end to class as a basis for advancement whilst simultaneously using the perceptions of their opponents class as a stick to beat them with. Methinks they want to eat their cake and have it.
46 - the same way there is a Union axis at the heart of the Labour party, paid for by us, the taxpayer, via the so called modernisation fund. I, for one will be glad when this is stopped by an incoming Conservative government. I’d rather have a toff who has used their own money that some champagne leftie union bloke pontificating about the poor.
fpt Sean Fear
“380 The assets that rich people tend to own, such as woods, heritage property, agricultural property, and business property, are mostly exempt from IHT. Country houses are exempt, so long as they’re open to the public some days a year.
Discounted gift trusts are a good way of saving IHT; so is writing life policies in trust for one’s heirs, rather than having them pay out to the estate. A rich person who is well-advised can ensure that his heirs pay very little IHT.”
He can if he is monomaniac about avoiding iht but note that “business property” means small business property so the asset classes you list are quite limited. When I was taught trust law as part of solicitor’s final exams (I hasten to add I no longer practise as one) I was told, correctly, that no decision should be made purely on tax grounds. Most people who could afford it would quite like to own a lot of nice blue chip equities and government bonds and consumer goodies like town houses and furniture rather than a lot mud and not much else.
Yes discounted gift trusts work a bit but they reduce, not abolish, iht liability and depend on giving stuff away which lots of people prefer not to do. So yes iht planning can help but the often repeated mantra that “the rich don’t pay iht” is simply bollocks.
I like Eton. When I was at school in the 1960s ( a modern state grammar school in Berkshire ) I played rugby against them. Us oiks really enjoyed the away fixture as our hosts entertained us very well in their “Buttery” after the game. This included drinking beer out of battered old quart pots and I recall being very sad being told to return to the school coach after a too short but very convivial time.
59 - News International will be praying for a Tory victory, that’s for sure. It’s yet another reason to hope that one does not materialise. If only the consequence of that was not five more years of Brown …
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
29. des
“She lived(s) in a large Welsh rural farmhouse, enjoys horse riding, is not short of a bob or two and from a privileged background . In short she was no different from Mr Timpson her opponent.”
And this is why Labour’s attempt at class war will fail because the people who are doing it are the new toffs themselves. People who have been and will continue to be paid enormous amounts of taxpayers money. People who have had very privileged upbringing themselves. People who have never done a ‘proper day’s work’.
Difficult to see the Millibands or Balls or Harman being able to empaphise with the proles when they start these games isn’t it?
Look at PB’s very own voice of Labour - a landowner who is so rich that he doesn’t even have to do any work at all.
Notice also how said voice of Labour absolutely hates Conservative women from working class backgrounds such as Nadine Dorries and the candidates in Eastleigh and Sefton Central.
Re: IHT - Have Labour actually forgotten that raising the IHT threshold benefits every estate from £325k upwards? The fact that a £1m estate gains the maximum benefit doesn’t change the fact that a £500k (say) estate will benefit by some £70k.
A £500k estate certainly isn’t a lot in the South of England.
59. “Papers can switch back but if this carries on it would seemingly make any rapprochment less likely and more difficult. I don’t really see what Mandelson hopes to gain from this blind fury. It looks jolly petulant.”
I honestly believe there’s something we don’t know about Mandelson and the Sun, as his reaction in particular has been so OTT that I can’t figure out why.
59 Yes David, but the Sun’s political editor I hope will use better judgement in future. The sun needs to attack brown but they need to appear to play by the rules and point out when Gordon, peter and Alistair, don’t.
This is heartbreaking
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232611/Mother-boy-snatched-social-workers-refusing-doctors-advice-feed-chocolate-crisps.html
54 etc I get the feeling that you Tories are just a teeny bit rattled when you have an outpouring of such utter rubbish.
67 - Spot on.
Who cares where Dave went to school? What may resonate, though, is that it is one rule for rich Tories and another for everyone else. “We’re all in this together” indeed.
51. An attack on News international is worthwhile in itself. I found nothing as revolting as Blair going on a haj to Rupertville. It tempted me like nothing else to withhold my vote from Labour.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably declare that as of Saturday, I have changed from a floating Tory/LibDem voter (leaning Tory) to a certain Tory voter.
This I accomplished by moving from a safe Labour seat to a Con/Lab marginal…
I didn’t see PMQS but are you sure Gordon won if it provokes reactions like this from Mr. Brogan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/6712329/Labour-has-given-up-governing-and-now-just-wants-a-class-war.html
82 - Wot, more than Lebanon?
62 S&S Astute observation on the football team supporter nature of political commentary in the US. I hate it. Intelligent people spouting non-sensical party-lines simply because that is the party line, as if they can’t disagree with any element of party dogma or have a single independent intelligent thought of their own.
14 - I will ask again, why should my friend who cleans houses for a living lose part of that inheritance.
Neither her parents or her are or ever were toffs or millionaires.
the parents just tried to do the right thing for their kids and Labour seem to punish people who act responsibly.
Whats worse is that they look like losing their house early next year (the inheritance did at least postpone this) as the husband cannot obtain any work after being made redundant.
help from the government for them? dont make me laugh.
On IHT I am confused. I keep reading that “houses are worth more than that in the Sarfeast”. Well yes, they are now. So if the owner of a house worth £400k fell under a bus tomorrow, AND had no mortgage then yes, they would have to worry about IHT.
But house prices have been high for a few years. Why isn’t it the case that large numbers of ordinary homeowners close to that London haven’t been paying IHT? Oh yeah, because they’re still alive. By the time they die many of them will have downsized into something smaller. Or spent the money on a cruise or a nursing home. And the threshhold for IHT will have had 30 years of increases.
Which is why the “anyone living in the sarfeast” line doesn’t marry up with reality. But its a nice piece of spin which has been effective. I do worry about people who quote it who seem to think its actually true….
70. The class system, and indeed poverty, are part of the raison d’etre for left wing parties, there is no incentive for left wing parties to tackle either as they would render themselves irrelevant.
“Its not the wealth, it’s not the schools, its hypocrisy”
Quote of the day, now how many Cabinet Ministers can we attach it too?
It is very funny hearing the Tim and Southam strategy on Brown. That says well I don’t like Brown, but I don’t like the Tories. Theres only one way to solve this…Fight.
Course what will actually happen is like Polly last time they will reluctantly put on their nose pegs.
67: ‘Its not the wealth, it’s not the schools, its hypocrisy’
tim, the Labour Party should be paying you a lot of money to advise them! As you rightly say, portraying Cameron as corrupt was a winner - a devastating and crystallised means of attack. Alas, today Labour have wrecked that beautifully honed tactic with this Maguireite lunacy of social resentment, envy and hate. Seeing Brown wallow in this dung today was a ghastly spectacle. The Tories will be pouring pink gins aplenty in celebration tonight!
26 - Sotham - lies are lies. I remember when Labour leaners recognised that too.
Seems to some lies are only a problem if the blue team utter them.
Call me old fashioned but whilst I know all politicians play hard and loose with facts and stretch them to near breaking point this government though has crossed a line.
lies, smears and spin is what I will remember them for.
On schools, I couldn’t care less where Cameron went to school. Blair went to a posh public school and Oxbridge, so did Cameron. So did quite a few politicians. Its not the school thats the issue, its the policy. Supermac was an old Etonian, but pursued one-nation policies. Hard to call him a hypocrite (not that one did in those years…).
Its what Cameron says and does that provides the ammunition. The Eton/Bullingdon thing is just a nice way of defining the argument. The kind of life where £10k is seen as a trivial amount (Mr Goldsmith) is a million miles away from most people.
77 It is personal, Mandelson thought he had personal friendships with Rupert, James and Elizabeth Murdoch & her hubbie. He dropped in often to Rebecca Wade’s and vice versa. Gordon and Sarah developed their relationship with Rupert & Wendi, had them over to Chequers and Downing Street, all good mates.
He is acting like a wronged boyfriend, blaming Cameron for breaking them up through special favours.
Poor Mandy, they just weren’t that into you.
84 My God,who took the jam out of Mr Brogan’s doughnut?
84 - There does seem to be a concerted attempt by Tory columnists and commentators to portray any questioning of Tory plans to give tax breaks to their wealthy backers as a return to class war. But it is not really class war to ask whether it is fair to give tax breaks to the rich while cutting services to the bone for everyone else. It seems a pretty legitmate line of attack to me.
88 Ian Bailey: “Which is why the “anyone living in the sarfeast” line doesn’t marry up with reality. But its a nice piece of spin which has been effective. I do worry about people who quote it who seem to think its actually true….”
It wouldn’t be effective spin if the people who quoted it did not sound as though they actually thought it were true…
88 - Yes but on past performance house prices will increase far faster than the IHT threshold thus dragging more estates into the purview of this tax.
33 - again your blind hatred of the tories is blinding you to the facts.
80 Not rattled - just sad that the OESI is allowed by people like you to continue to ruin our country. There again, you are Welsh.
93 - Just as I remember Aitken, Archer, Porter etc etc; two imprisoned, one still on the run, though I am sure to be alowed back once the Tories are back in power
88 Well exactly Ian, people see it as an insurance against forcing their family to sell their home if they are hit by a bus, but as you rightly point out it raises very little anyway, and the Tories have funded it from non-doms.
FPT 379 Roger
people wont blame Cameron for going to Eton but any perceived favoritism to those from similar backgrounds is and they’ll be regarded as a clique. Zak hasn’t helped.
I wonder just how far the “old school tie” persists today. Friends made at university tend to be more persistent through life than school friends. I accept that university friends tend to come from similar backgrounds, but to claim that the diaspora of Old Etonians has the same influence on political advancement as, say, L’École Polytechnique in France is to misread the influences.
I see much greater similarities between Osborne and Cameron than say either of them with Zak Goldsmith. As Scott Fitzgerald said in opening his short story: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” The risk of Zak being an MP is that he will never need Parliament in the way that other MPs - even the relatively rich - will.
He will definitely win in Richmond Park though. A true local brought up in Ormeley Lodge, his mother’s beautiful house, prominent to everyone that passes through Ham gate into Richmond Park. To the vast majority of Richmond’s constituents - whether admitted or not - Zak will represent their fantasy lifestyle.
I would be surprised though if he stayed the course for a long and successful political career.
94 - Yes but that is true of the other end of the spectrum too, most people have no experience of living literally hand to mouth and even if they tried to imagine it would be several miles wide of the mark. Frankly any politician waxing lyrical about the plight of the marginalised and disposessed in society is likely to be guilty of either hypocrisy or massive over-simplification.
91 - With great reluctance I will not be voting Labour at the next election. They just do not deserve it. It’s made easier for me, of course, because I live in a rock solid Tory constituency and so my vote counts for nothing anyway.
Anna - from that brogan article..
“Believe it or not, No 10 and the Treasury are considering extending upper-rate income tax to the annual gain in value of your pension pot. The better your retirement fund does, the more you would have to hand over each year out of your income. This in effect would be a tax not on your income now, but on what it might be at retirement, a sort of Minority Report tax that would depend on outside forces rather than the fruits of your effort. A Government that raided pension funds once, with devastating effects, is minded to do it again.”
Now that is definately a vote loser, if they are really thinking along these lines they are toast. Pensions have already been trashed by GB. Besides, how would that work, tax rebate if the value falls as it has done in recent times ? Yeah, go on try it.
94, then do you support Brown’s plans to increase NI for everyone earning £19k or more? Or Cameron’s to reverse it?
85. alex. 1997!!
PS. very funny post about Prince Harry on the last thread. A pity Labour can’t use him on a 48 sheet. if that’s what an Eton education looks like Brown would be a shoo in!
92 - And don’t forget the key point for the future.
Everyone knows there’s tough financial decisions coming, the election campaign will be dominated by how the pain will be shared, yet Cameron and Osborne have shown their priority group to be protected in these tough times.
And its people who are going to inherit between £650,00 and £2 Million.
97 - Brogan’s column is not about querying Tory “tax breaks”. It is about Labour proposing measures which would never see the light of day if there was a chance they had to implement them, for no other reason than to try and cause discomfort for the Tories.
It is the consensus view among economic commentators that the 50% tax rate could well cost the Govt money. But the Tories can’t oppose it, for perfectly sound reasons, without being accused of “favouring the rich”.
Meanwhile any attempt to address the serious problems involved with the welfare and tax credit system (problems recognised by the LibDems as well as the Tories) and they are “punishing the poor” to pay for the rich.
86- Yes, that is annoying, isn’t it! The fact is that, on both left and right in America, people are generally not very well educated on political matters or well trained in critical thinking skills. That makes them highly inclined to basically choose a party at some early age and then support all of its positions without giving any of them much thought. In that way, any political discussion basically devolves into an inquiry into whether you’re on the same “team” or not, and ends there. For most people, politics is nothing more than that.
For others, the “independents,” it generally doesn’t even go that far; they are no better educated than the partisans, but they don’t bother to pick a party either. However, the independents do have the virtue of thus voting on whether they’re pleased with the course of events in the country rather than a blind devotion to party labels. In that way, the two major parties in the U.S. have become more like tribes than actual coherent philosophical groupings.
103 - Why not use that non-dom money to fund something else? It’s all about choices, isn’t it? And the Tories have made theirs.
107 - So the very top earners should keep a disproportionate share of tax relief on pension contributions then? I think that’s a dividing line.
97 - But the point is that it is not just ‘The Rich’ being attacked. It is the middle classes, the people who decide general elections. It is that reason that this kind of policy means Labour can’t win the general election if it is their key points.
General elections are won in Watford and Edinburgh, not Glasgow.
109, I’d sooner have a front-line soldier in high office than a backroom bully.
84.Anna, that was a hell of an article from Ben Brogan, he just gave Brown and Darling both barrels. Too many bits to quote.
101 Funnily enough there are so many people from your part of the world moving into Wales that we have to build extra houses to accommodate them.You must like us really.
84. AnnaK.
It’s not the first time that a columnist has watched a different PMQs to the rest of us.
Like most PBers (as far as I can tell), I thought Brown scored an easy win, although his cock-up over the G20 may turn it into a score draw.
104. Seth - in Tim’s absence I offer you an evens £50 bet that Zac will not win Richmond Park.
114 - I don’t think you’ve understood the point. This is not about tax relief on pension contributions (although it has been suggested that changing that will have damaging consequences because Company bosses will desert company schemes, and therefore have less motivation for maintaining the value for lower paid staff).
This is about taxing (unrealised) gains in pension pots.
114 yes, as they pay a disproportionate amount on their income.
Fair’s fair.
67 - its hypocrisy
Yep, but that is what you do and I suppose you are never going to change now.
99. I don’t think past performance (’No more boom and bust’) applies anymore.
114 - read it again, this is not about contributions, this is taxing annually your actual pension pot.
OK
So a number of Tory boys were deeply upset at my question to them a couple of nights ago.
New question for supporters of all three of the major [?] political parties.
Following your assertion that no policy exists that has no losers; as a result of your policies at the next election which groups in society will be the big winners, and which will be the big losers?
By answering this question it will be impossible for you to be called liars by your opponents after you win the election, as you will already have explained how bad and how good things will be before a single vote has been cast.
Calling names, children, will not be considered an answer.
115 - The vast majority of middle class people in this country live in properties worth significantly less than £350,000, earn a salary of well under £50,000 a year, send their kids to state schools and use a wide range of public services.
107.Kristin, that further attack on pensions jumped out at me. That Brogan article is the stuff of nightmares. He sounds like a journalist who having had good relationships with the Brownite crew, has suddenly discovered their underlying plot to shaft the UK.
There’s an entertaining bit of class-war from Bill Leckie in tomorrow’s Scottish Sun. It will be online later. I think it will appeal to the current thinking from No10.
125 - would they also put a value on the public sector pension pots ? Now that would be interesting.
110 There you go Sotham, One lie for you courtesy of Tim. THe Tories have repeadly said that the National Insurance cut is their priority.
116. “109, I’d sooner have a front-line soldier in high office than a backroom bully.”
I’d prefer him to 99% of Labour MPs.
88 I’m not sure that that many do downsize. Not if they can help it. Those that do and buy smaller properties probably use the surplus to help their children with a deposit. Those that don’t, and die, leave sickening tax bills for their offspring.
It’s effectively a tax on southern families. Not rich people. Just average people. My aunt died suddenly this year. She’d been a nurse all her life in south east London. Paid tax like everyone else. Lived a sensible life and never claimed benefits. Whopping tax bill at the end.
126. Malcolm.
I presume the irony in your last line is intentional.
79. “This is heartbreaking”
If you believe it. I can imagine the Mail running one of those stories if the social workers had taken baby P. Instead they pilloried them for not taking him. This story is riddled with holes.
118 Free prescriptions
119 Did Cameron lie at PMQs? Liar v Non-Liar = Win For Cammo
re 126. Malcolm - I think that that is a ridiculous use of a thread.
If you’ve got questions like that then put them to your MP and local PPCs.
111 - Brogan’s article, like Thompson’s, is about making Labour seem wedded to class-based politics. It is an attempt to change a narrative that is showing vague signs, no more, of becomimg slightly uncomfortable for the party that both support. It’s spin.
97 - sigh. You really are not interested in the truth are you?
You are turning into tim lite
I still wonder why the conservatives do not try to defend their IHT policy more vigorously.
When they came out with the idea it was very popular, house prices were shooting up, people that had worked and save hard all their life wanted to leave there family something.
The term millionaire may apply to us all one day if inflation kicks off again.
I am not an expert but as far as I can tell people with more than a million will still pay the tax, we are only talking about the difference between £ 330,000 and a million - £ 670,000 if the tax is at 40% isn’t that £ 268,000 that is saved at the most.
I cannot see how the treasury looses out in any case as everything we do now is so heavily taxed they will soon recoup the money when the money inherited is spent.
It is more about keeping ordinary people in their place than anything else.
131 - As I said, a lie on here means an opinion that Tories do not like.
84 You can see Nick robinson creaming his pants at the “cleverness” of Gordon after announcing all the non policies. just have a look at this post today. The final bit is supposed to add balance but you can tell he really enjoyed all the rest. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/12/whys_gordon_smi.html
139 Chris A = Tim lite (copyright)
Southam Observer = Dim Tim
139 - I am very interested in the truth. All too frequently the truth seems to be very different to the PB Tory consensus.
141 surely we can only take the tories on what they say. Sure you can doubt it, but to say the total opposite is a lie pure and simple.
re 141. That’s a bit silly. A lie is something that is presented as the truth but isn’t. A lie is not an opinion.
re 144. Was Brown’s assertion today the Spain was part of the G20 a lie? It certainly wasn’t the truth and seemed a mighty convenient way of dealing with an attack.
146 - err, that’s my point Mike.
128 - Brogans article of course has nothing to say about the Cameron/Osborne policy which protects the wealthiest from economic pain.
We all know the bulk of the pain will be paid by those between 20,000 and 60,000.
The difference with Osborne and Cameron is that they will protect those on the very highest incomes, and bizarrely, those who are going to inherit wealth rather than create it.
143. If we are lucky SO will share his views on economics with us again, and provide us with a good chuckle.
141/ 144 - well, I’m not a tory (but as sure as hell will vote for them next time)
you seem to be struggling with this, so one more time.
A lie is a lie.
112 S&S I agree - mostly. It’s not all down to ignorance. My brother-in-law is extremely intelligent and well-versed in politics. But even he will trot out the Pelosi line 100% of the time, as if he could possibly agree with everything she thinks.
144 - I really don’t know. But it wasn’t true. A lie is not something that is presented as the truth but isn’t; it is something that is presented as the truth when the person doing the presenting knows it isn’t true.
I would not call my daughter a liar for saying that Father Christmas existed, for instance.
Labour baroness named EU’s new foreign affairs chief is asked if she ever took Soviet cash to help run CND
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232673/Baroness-Ashton-quizzed-CND-past-day-EU-foreign-affairs-chief.html
126. Hello Malcolm. You never ended the discussion three nights ago. To refresh your memory here is my final post:
Malcolm
You appear to have missed my post at 238, so here it is again:
“But OK. You go first. I dispute that a sensible answer to your question is possible (and TimT agrees). So to clarify the terms of reference please identify three actions of any government, at any time, that meet your specifications so that I can be clearer as to what I have to produce.”
If you don’t respond to this, you label yourself as a pompous but timorous windbag from now on for all time.
I am going to bed now but I see from your deeply interesting resume above that you are malingering in the USA, so will have bags of time to formulate a proper response. Three examples, no limits on where or when. Surely not difficult?
by Constan Treader November 30th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
147 - A well educated, quick on his feet politician would have picked the lumbering Brown up on that.
But Dave has not been good recently, is he less sure of the benches behind him perhaps?
150 - Good evening my dear chum. Isn’t it horrid when people are beastly about Tories?
132. Wouldn’t it worry you that if he got drunk and dressed up in his Nazi outfit he might start a 3rd world war?
104 Goupillon
I was about to say yes when I was warned off by Uncle Victor.
Are you a local in the constituency? I lived for some time close by and have personal friends involved so I approach my prediction more on the basis of faith than evaluation.
I shall look into it further as a betting opportunity and get back to you.
149 Absolutely priceless . Do you have any idea how badly Brown has screwed the wealthcreators in this country?
156 - you dont seem to let all your mistakes hold you back tim
Anyway, Cameron said we will be last out of recession. He was factually correct. Brown, not for the first time gave a factually incorrect answer.
Simples
153 So, to check I understand your defintion of a lie Southam, Tony Blair saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction is a lie, yes?
158 - Leave Balls out of this Roger!
159. Seth - OK offer stays open until 12.00am tomorrow.
153 “it is something that is presented as the truth when the person doing the presenting knows it isn’t true.”
Exacly so Tim knows the Tories have said the priority is to cut national insurance and yet he claims they are saying the priority is Inheritence Tax. Terefore he knew it to be untrue and therefore a lie.
156.”But Dave has not been good recently, is he less sure of the benches behind him perhaps?”
I suspect that nightmare scenario laid out by Benedict Brogan will focus minds, so if anything, it will firm up the support for Cameron. That by the way was another big hole dug and then neatly stepped into by Gordon today. No one rallies the Tories to the cause better than Gordy and a class war.
162 - If he knew it was untrue - yes.
Am I the only one starting to think that this minor lull in their fortunes is in fact proving beneficial to the Tories? Labour have gotten carried away: Brown’s Spanish blunder/deception, plans for a scorched-earth PBR. And now Brown’s Maguireite class-hatred Christmas cake for the Tories. Dave must be rubbing his hands.
Embarrassment for Brown as he mixes up Reese Witherspoon and Renee Zellweger as she visits Parliament
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232640/Embarrassment-Brown-mistakes-Reese-Witherspoon-Renee-Zellweger-visits-Parliament.html
Thats our gordon ‘confused’
138:I dont think the Brogan article is spin. The tone is different than before. He has always come over as pro Brown before.
He has obviously heard something about what is in next weeks, PBR that he is very angry about, or maybe the new editor has taken over and ordered a new editorial direction for the newspaper.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6703742/Chancellor-needs-an-extra-15bn-ITEM-says.html
“”The UK’s fiscal reputation is on notice – given the size of the deficit, action is needed,” said Peter Spencer, chief economic advisor to the ITEM Club. “A key issue, however, in designing the post-election fiscal strategy is the impact that the sizeable policy tightening needed will have on the strength of the economic recovery.”
Last month Fitch, the ratings agency, said that of all the major economies, Britain was at greatest risk of losing its top-tier credit rating. Mr Spencer said that ideally, monetary policy would be loosened to offset the negative effects of fiscal tightening on spending.
However, with interest rates at just 0.5pc and likely to remain low for the foreseeable future, the scope was very limited, he said.”
In other words, we are in a world of pain and not best placed at all.
Sotham - best placed was a lie too
167 What about Gordon Brown abolishing boom and bust?
Was that:
A) A lie
B) Delusion
C) The truth
138 But, they are wedded to class-based policies. Labour’s cheerleaders think that 40% of our estates belong to the government; the Conservatives don’t.
You can decide which side of that divide you want to be on.
88 The general view is that in 30 years time, house prices will be a good deal higher than they are now.
172 - B
165 - What people say and what people do are completely different things. It’s like saying “we are all in this together” while planning significant tax breaks for your welathy backers.
“Industry fades under Labour” in the FT tomorrow
Just to stop Sotham before he gets started “even more so than under Thatcher”
“no more boom and bust” - that was a lie too, unless he really is deluded.
170 I think Brogan is absolutely right, and this is Labour’s standard way of doing things really. i.e. eye catching initiatives etc. They did exactly the same thing at the queens speech. The media got that absolutely right and saw through it instantly, I hope they do again and Brogan’s article is promising in that he immediately saw the ruse for what it is.
72 (and FPT) Constan reader. First off, silence from me is not evidence that the rich pay IHT, merely that I was doing something else.
Your theory is based on the premise that “people don’t like to give away their assets before they die”. Has it occurred to you that the well-advised rich have got over this hurdle, partly through the use of trusts to protect themselves against penury?
I’m not an expert on IHT but assume that the fat fees paid to barristers, tax accountants and others (including me from time to time) do actually have a purpose. For example when the Second Duke of Westminster died (unprepared) in 1953 the Grosvenor Estate had to sell Pimlico to meet the Estate Duty liability. They resolved not to get caught out that way again and on the next three deaths the tax paid has been nil or tiny - and the Estate has grown steadily. From my brief exposure I’d expect the bill on the death of the 6th Duke to be similarly small.
(If I start to watch another movie, with that be evidence that I am wrong?)
149 It is those earning £20,000 to £60,000 who generally bear the brunt of problems caused by Labour governments.
Inheritance, however, is unrelated to what one earns. There will certainly be people in the £20,000-£60,000 bracket who can expect to inherit money that might face inheritance tax.
Remember, IHT is a tax on the estate, not the recipient. It bears no relation to the recipient’s income.
166 - There a plenty on the right of your party prepared to have a class based pop at Air Miles Zac.
Why?
Because its about hypocrisy.
170.Anna, very good point. As I said up thread, that Brogan article is the stuff of nightmares. He sounds like a journalist who having had good relationships with the Brownite crew, has suddenly discovered their underlying plot to shaft the UK.
175 What tax breaks?
168
Cor! doesn’t matter what, its always good news for the Tories.
Another, ‘Cast Iron Pledge’ down the Swanee.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/tories+scrap+flagship+new+prisons+plan/3447482
Brogan! when he was at the Mail, he was a really good read, since he’s been with the Bellylarf he’s absolute sh*t.
mm Telegragh view going with both barrels as well..
A generation betrayed
Labour promised - and failed - to deliver significant improvements in health care and school standards
“This has been a singularly bad week for the Labour Government in the two areas of policy on which it most wished to be judged: the NHS and education. The figures showing that cancer survival rates are worse in Britain than in many other comparable countries, despite big increases in investment, have been followed by equally depressing statistics about falling educational standards. This time, the group affected comprises primary school pupils born since the accession to power of a party committed, in the now hollow sound bite of Tony Blair, to “education, education, education”. These are the children of New Labour: who else can be blamed for the marked decline (by one fifth) in the number of primary schools where all pupils leave with a decent grasp of English and maths? ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6712173/A-generation-betrayed.html
Sotham if you think Brown is deluded (no more boom and bust) what on earth does that say about Labour who gave him the top job and failed miserably time after time to get rid of him?
Lets just say that his failings are not exactly new news so they must have known.
A new Angus Reid poll - goodish news for Our Glorious Leader
http://www.visioncritical.com/2009/12/britons-expect-political-compromise-or-no-agreement-at-climate-summit/
179 - Precisely the point.
If Cameron wants to increase wealth creation, why aim the tax cuts at his personal benefit from a 18th century estate when he’s already wealthy.
Target the money Dave.
173 - Now you could say that was a lie, couldn’t you? Labour does not tax the value of estates at 40%, it taxes estates worth over £325,000 at 40% once the £325,000 threhold has been reached. An estate worth £500,000 is not taxed at 40%, the first £325,000 is tax free and then the 40% comes into play. To say otherwise is, I am afraid, to be telling an untruth.
So Southam you support a party which has been led first by a liar, and now by someone who is deluded. I support a party you despise led by someone who is a bit posh but received the best education available.
Are you:
(1) A supporter of liars and deluded people
(2) Anti-Toff
(3) A liar
(4) Deluded
(5) All of the above?
180 - hypocrisy tim? That’s how I feel about incessant posts about IHT by someone whose own estate is exempt.
For goodness sake, do Tim and SO not realise how obsessed and boring they seem with IHT rubbish? Are Labour really going to have this as their only caqmpaign theme from now until May?
So much for no more boom and bust…….
This first headline will be depressing for us all
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/thursday_3rd_december_2009.html
185 - I agree. Labour needs time in opposition to work out just how it managed to bugger things up so badly. The only problem with that is that we have to have the Tories in control. As I said, a rock and a hard place.
176 Exactly the point. The manufacturing company I’m part of enjoyed record profits in 1996,in 2010 it is likely to go under. Thanks Gordon.
175 Fine you can doubt that, but it is not the same as saying osborne is lying. Unlike we now know for a fact Tony Blair lied about WMD and Gordon Brown lied about best placed and no more boom and bust.
Therefore given Gordon’s proven record of deceit(and we are talking mega porkies) On balance I believe the Tories more.
Sorry to be going back a bit, but I have just been reading up on the No 10 statements (etc) on the Spain/G20 issue.There is something possibly small but important here. The Prime Minister said something that was, just as a fact given his words, not true.Could be a mistake or a poltical lie. Irritating but that happens. Much more revealing is how he dealt with it later.He has chosen to evade and , frankly, lie further in cover up.There was a way out of it he could have taken by the classic “misspeak” route. He and his people wont do it. I fear for our country with this man there. He cannot be wrong, can he. Cameron, whatever his flaws, is 10% more honest ,normal and decent.
It’s New Labour New Danger cica 1997 all over again with tales of the dead unburied and rubbish in the streets. It did not work for the Tories then, instead they got hammered. It will not work for Brown in 2010 and Labour will be hammered.
158. “132. Wouldn’t it worry you that if he got drunk and dressed up in his Nazi outfit he might start a 3rd world war?”
No I don’t worry about that much any more, now that Blair has gone the risk has been much reduced.
The closer we get to the election the more torn I find myself. I really, really want Brown and Labour to get a kicking at the next election and see him dragged kicking and screaming from No 10. However I think that this will be an election to lose. The public have still not woken up to how bad things are with the economy and the pain that is going to be inflicted regardless of which party wins. So in many ways I would like Brown to win the election with a small majority be exposed for the incompetent he is and have to call another election after perhaps 12 months and watch him be eradicated with the rest of the Labour party.
my previous comment was meant to be 100% not 10%. Typing!!
Southern Observer, you do realise that Labour are in opposition at Holyrood and not at Westminster don’t you?
189 - Actually it’s 6, no longer a supporter of Labour.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Labour-Candidate-Peter-White-Axed-For-Calling-Queen-Vermin/Article/200912115485884?lpos=Politics_Carousel_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15485884_Labour_Candidate_Peter_White_Axed_For_Calling_Queen_Vermin
Giant warship dwarfs town
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2755399/Giant-warship-dwarfs-town.html
my god,what a marvellous looking ship.
192.”The FT reports that British manufacturing and industry declined more under Labour than during the Thatcher era.”
154. Which is the moral equivalent of the Countryside Alliance taking donations from the Klu Klux Klan.
202 So will you vote at all? Cleggovers Labour lite or perhaps the BNP?
192 “British manufacturing and industry declined more under Labour than during the Thatcher era”
It’s what Labour is about….
Just watched PMQ. Check out the ears on Gregory Barker.
Brown on excellent form but it looks unsustainable to me. I think he is bipolar and the bigger the high, the bigger the swingback.
201 - Er, yes.
193 - we are edging closer to agreement here
I was very happy to see the Conservatives booted out in 1997. I will be ecstatic when Labour are given the boot.
No doubt after a period of time I will want the tories booted out.
But, I will not prejudge them, I will judge them by their deeds this time.
If I took your approach I could never be happy for Labour to take power again, their sins I am afraid are far worse than those I hated the tories for in the 90’s.
207 - I will wait to see who is on the ballot. It won’t be Tory, Labour, BNP or UKIP, I know that.
188 Splitting hairs, I think.
New Labour, and (I presume yourself) think a very high proportion of our estates rightufully belong to the State. The Conservative’s don’t.
Happy now?
re 204 and no doubt has cost twice as much as it should have and should have been dwarfing the town 5 years ago.
212 Labour lite then. One of the Lib Dem 20%.
208 They thought it couldn’t be done.
I for one am glad that only millionaires will pay IHT. Good to see a party looking out for those of us who aren’t well off.
203 - politician’s career destroyed by a drunken (I expect) rant on facebook - not that I endorse the chaps views but it makes you wonder what type of politicians of the future we’ve going to get who have never commented a controversial word, taken a dodgy photo or tweeted like a twit
204 - do we have any missiles for it?
On past form I do worry.
Sky News last 2 stories…
No help for Midlands manufacturers
No bonuses to help keep banks competitive
Next up…..
204 - Strange that picture has brought to mind some Gilbert & Sullivan notably HMS Pinafore particularly one verse from the song “When I was a lad”.
Nothing changes….
On Gordon’s IHT stance: If he thinks that ownership of a £350,000 house makes you a millionaire, no wonder he screwed up the economy so badly.
211 - I can’t forgive the Tories the 80s and what they did to (or failed to do for) so much of the non-Tory voting part of this country. My hope is that the Tories have learned from the considerable mistakes they made last time around and that Labour does a large amount of learning when it is in opposition. My fear is that I will be sadly disappointed on both fronts.
204
Just in time for the Tories to do a John Knott, and mothball it.
212 Stand as the OMRL Party candidate….!
Only in Britain would a “class isn’t important” thread generate such fast posting.
CLASS ISN’T IMPORTANT
Now can we have a nice cup of tea.
Sky News last 6 stories
No help for Midlands manufacturers
No bonuses to help keep banks competitive
Broken Britain
More crime
Vermin Labour PPC
Doubts over Afghan surge
Going well Gordo
218 The problem is that quite often when posting late at night, one is drunk.
Sky News says that Alistair Darling is determined to “win” the fight over RBS bonuses.
Oops.
If you sup with the devil, be sure to use a long spoon. The directors of Royal Bank of Scotland knew what to expect when they signed up to run a bank now 84% owned by the U.K. government. They can hardly be surprised when, months before an election, the government puts short-term political calculations ahead of the long-term commercial viability of the U.K.’s biggest bank by assets.
Even so, the Treasury’s efforts to win headlines by demanding veto rights over RBS bonuses this year look inept.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735004574572181572046014.html
218 - Pliant lobby hacks I would expect. I have no problem with his views, people are entitled to be republican if they so choose. Being gratuitously insulting is way out of order, I think it was wise to remove him for the time being but it would be sad if he was prohibited from standing in perpetuity.
213 - Interesting. Most of our estates - and by our I mean the British people generally - will not be subject to any kind of tax. I have no problem with people like me paying a good whack of tax on money and property we inherit but have done absolutely nothing to earn.
Via Guido I bring you this ………….
http://www.keeprightonline.com/2009/12/02/and-now-zimbabwe-overtakes-us/
Yep, Zimbabwe are out of recession ……
“things can only get better” - I will accept that was just delusional and not a fib
215 - I find the prosepct of voting LibDem very depressing indeed. It could well be none of the above.
232 - It’s a somewhat scurrilous comparison though but the underlying point is valid.
231 - Tax it as income and give everyone a £200k personal allowance.
Seems fair.
224 - Coldie, you do realise under current Labour plans there will not be enough escorts for those shiny new carriers ?
223. “I can’t forgive the Tories the 80s and what they did to (or failed to do for) so much of the non-Tory voting part of this country.”
and yet “British manufacturing and industry declined more under Labour than during the Thatcher era”
elicits no condemnation. Curious.
Destroying Wealth! It’s what Labour governments do!!
(I am grateful to Gordo for using that phrase today. I expect it to be on posters nationwide)
233 Vote Tory. You know you want to.
As Sideshow Bob said on the Simpsons (1994)
“Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may move you to vote Lib Dem, but deep down you long for a cold-hearted Tory to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king.”
231 And a lot of people resent the Treasury benefiting from the death of a loved one.
Has the Grauniad not spoken to the Treasury?
Royal Bank of Scotland threats will win bonus row
RBS and Stephen Hester will have upper hand in argument over executive pay
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/02/royal-bank-of-scotland-bonuses-viewpoint
Mike,
I apologise wholeheartedly for bringing politics into pb.com, it won’t happen again.
237 - I don’t blame the Tories too much for the decline in manufacturing and industry as that was always going to happen. What I blame them for is the fact that they left the communities hit by the decline to rot because they tended to vote Labour - with consequences we are all still paying heavily for now.
204 I flew into Glasgow in August and from the plane you could see 2 Type 45’s berthed at the yard in Scotstoun, very impressive looking ships indeed
Interesting assumption that if you haven’t “earned” the money (ignore the fact that someone did earn it, and got taxed on it…), it should belong to the state, rather than you…….
231 - Sotham I have paid tax on all my earnings, why am I (family) being penalised for being careful / prudent with my money?
As I said, cleaning lady earning near min wage has been hit by this.
Her parents were not rich either, why should the government tax them this way?
239 - I am sure they do. Luckily the vast majority of Britons are never affected.
The Telegraph obviously missed the briefing too
The row over bonuses at the Royal Bank of Scotland highlights the impossible and contradictory position Labour has landed itself in. It’s the sort of multi-dimensional mess that a dissembling Government born of spin and manipulation thoroughly deserves to end its days with.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/6712842/Darling-must-lead-by-example-if-he-wants-Europe-to-leave-the-City-alone.html
189. “…by someone who is a bit posh but received the best education available.”
Available to a very small minority though, I think is the alternative point???
There is also an argument about whether that is the ‘best’ education available of course - it is obviously extremely good in terms of achieving a place in the elite of society (both academically, and socio-politically) - but there are other things to learn in life that you are less likely to find out at Eton.
The truth is, that class considerations in politics are not always about ‘warfare’, but are often based on moral or philosophical considerations about how we order our society.
That is not to say that I support the denigration of someone’s character purely because of their background. However, it is a legitimate consideration in politics if someone from an exceedingly privileged background leads a party whose raison d’etre has always been about maintaing societiel status quo.
In other words, it takes two to make a class war - and although Mike plays to his gallery often on here, it is worth considering who actually declared this present outbreak.
Today’s 10 o’clock very pro-Labour - though not explicitly in any way.
178. Pure wibble. I don’t see what picture of yourself you are trying to sell - you are “not an expert on IHT” but from time to time get paid “fat fees” to advise the rich on how to avoid it. How t f does that work? Are you a kind of Forrest Gump figure whose earthy wisdom transcends any merely technical knowledge of the Finance Acts?
And the Grosvenor estate first were so unprepared in 1953 they had to sell Pimlico but are now so prepared they pay “nil or tiny” tax the next three deaths running? I don’t see that as very likely. You do realise they were rich for centuries before getting the dukedom - surely long enough to develop enough of a grasp on how things work not to be taken completely unawares by death duties? And how do you know anything about it? Because if you really do know anything about it you almost certainly shouldn’t be posting pseudonymously about it on the internet.
And one thing I am clear about is that HMRC will absolutely not let you retain an interest in property of which you want to make a PET, via a trust or otherwise.
224,coldstone,talking about mothballing royal navy ships,this report from 2007.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/1564592/Labours-secret-plans-to-slash-the-Navy.html
242 - oh dear god…….. talk about selective reading of facts
248 I went to Grammar School because I was intelligent. Labour have destroyed this option for my children. They will not receive the best education available.
When I interview people for jobs, I believe an education is a good thing, not something to be ashamed of.
And I believe Labour started this in Crewe and Nantwich.
246 Well I and my family were and we resented it.
247 lets just savour a part of that article
It’s the sort of multi-dimensional mess that a dissembling Government born of spin and manipulation thoroughly deserves to end its days with.
Lets hear that again
It’s the sort of multi-dimensional mess that a dissembling Government born of spin and manipulation thoroughly deserves to end its days with.
yep, thats Labour for sure
245 - You are not being penalisd as you will be dead. Your family stand to inherit a considerable sum having done nothing to earn it and so I have no problem with them paying some tax. As for your cleaning lady example, I agree that there should be some flexibility to take account of the very rare cases such as hers.
Matthew Parris has a good column today Fnarr, Fnarr
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6941531.ece
236. “224 - Coldie, you do realise under current Labour plans there will not be enough escorts for those shiny new carriers ?”
That may not be a big problem as there are rumours that Labour are thinking of flogging one of the new carriers to India as soon as it is built.
Oh dear. Not everyone appreciates the sentiments behind my ‘Bring Back Tony’ petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/bbt54321/petition.html
Just received this email about it:
‘I can’t believe that you think that the incompetent pathetic war monger and lap dog of George Bush should ever be given a position of office in the UK again. During HIS time at number 10 he wrecked Britain with his idiotic policies and was responsible for destroying countless numbers of human lives not to mention the cost to this nation in material damage and disrespect of other nations around the world. I can only say thank God that he is not going to be given the opportunity to wreck Europe in the same way. Mark my words, it may take a year, it may take ten years from now but whatever it takes,Tony Blair will go to prison for a long time when convicted of war crime and breaking International law.’
238 - You seem to have missed tonights Tory Prisons U Turn.
Dave sent someone in to value his made up figures on how much Victorian Jails were worth.
Kirstie Allsopp-Property-Ramper I suspect, but it was found that even painting them all magnolia would only increase their value to nowhere near Dave’s guess.
Thus Dave’s Prison policy has gone from Location, Location, Location to Rahabilitation, Rehabilitation Rehabilitation.
253 - How many new grammar schools were created by Maggie and Major? How many will be created under Cameron and Grove?
256 - you see where it said “family”?
Again, the person has paid tax on their earnings, they are trying to provide for their children and you seem to feel this is bad?
It really does appear that you get punished for being sensible by this government.
Newsnight looks brilliant tonight - John McCain and Richard Holbrooke amongst others.
The BBC News finally catches up with the gardening leave of Prof Jones of the UEA. How long has this story being going round the internet, and the rest of the world?
I hate chelsea.
262 - I don’t think this government introduced IHT. Your family will get over £300,000 tax free and will pay 40% on anything above the threshold. They will get a very healthy whack on the basis of having done absolutely nothing at all.
265 - did they go to Eton?
266 They may be forced to sell their home on the basis of having just lost a relative.
Even if Dave is going to win, lets all have fun laughing at him
So it’s going to be class war. Now we know. Forget the Duke of Wellington and what he said about Waterloo. At PMQs Gordon Brown made it clear that he wants the next election to be won not on the playing fields of Eton but by attacking them.
David Cameron was furious, his face set, which for some reason only made him look more of a toff. It’s not fair but it’s true. I’m not sure that Dave knew what hit him. Gordon Brown was, as if by magic, back on big bruiser form, brimming with confidence, a man of the people who had found his voice again. It was as if the previous year had never happened. Indeed the previous two years.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6941540.ece
266 - again lets try this one more time.
The person purchasing the asset has paid tax on both the asset and also in all probability the money that pays for it.
Why does that persons family get punished for being sensible with their money?
The person is saving for their children, I really cannot see why the children should be taxed in this way.
Happy for millionaires to be treated differently of course
Which is the opposite of what you and tim were trying to claim up thread
246 Well my family is affected,and it sticks in the craw,quite frankly. We are not that well off,and I find the tax deeply offensive.
256. Perhaps IHT should be based on the amount received, rather than the value of the estate?
If you leave £1m to one person, pay a lot of tax;
if you leave £1,000 each to 1,000 people, pay no tax?
266 - “your family will get over £300,000 tax free and will pay 40% on anything above the threshold.”
40% on money that has already been double, tripled, quadrupled taxed….income tax, capital gains, etc.
The spouse does not have to sell anything, so it is only a problem if the kids are still living there and floater’s spouse has already died. If that is the case, the kids all get a nice chunk of money to buy new places to live, or they pay the tax and stay where they are.
273 - They have paid no tax on it previously.
274
or if they are divorced.
267
Ballack missed his pen - HA1
273 - You may find Osbornes family is inheriting an MPs second home, which George wants to cut his tax bill on.
253. I believe an education to be a good thing - which is why as Comprehensive student I carried on and did A-Levels and went to University.
But believing that a good education is important, does not necessarily mean that you think it should be enshrined that it is elitist. And, my original point is that the kind of education that David Cameron received is not what I would have wanted for myself or my children, regardless of how much wealth I had - that I have other definitions of what I consider to be the ‘best education’ for my kids.
Way, way up this thread Southam played down the significance of the Toffs line in the thrashing Labour took at Crewe & Nantwich.
I was very involved in the C&N byelection [given my name below, and a quick google search you'll see why] and Labour were on a loser from the outset for a range of reasons:
a tired Labour govt
sluggish economy
10p tax rate
years of taxation - little to show for it (prob. a little unfair in some ways)
all the things that irritate people re governments - crime, council tax, etc etc
The demise of Dunwoody (snr) also played a role - some personal vote lost, and Conservatives suddenly realised they might just be able to win!
Ashcroft money + Midlands Industrial Council.
Against this background a defeat was almost inevitable for Labour BUT perhaps a better campaign might have narrowed the margin. The significance of the Toffs campaign - it seems to me - was that it riled some Tories, and left some soft Labour voters thinking “why bother if that’s the best they can offer”.
It left me with the view that, whilst clearly the best outcome would have been a surprise win for Elizabeth Shenton, I really didn’t want Labour to hold the seat as they simply didn’t deserve it after such a mean-spirited campaign.
So there.
John Humphrys speaking at a city dinner tonight. Very entertaining. In a potentially hostile crowd he put up a very strong defence as to why the BBC does not give equal time to both sides of the global warming debate (precis: man made warming is accepted by every major government and by every serious current politician in the UK; I am not saying I am a scientist; BBC has to find the balance of public opinion and political consensus; opponants still welcome and have recently been on Today programme; accept that the debate has intensified in recent weeks and that public perception is changing; it’s an important debate).
Strongly critical of Blair - one sensed personal emnity. Also disparaging of Thatcher - quite close to the line on some gender comments… - described her as the most formidable politician he ever interviewed.
Shrewdly stayed away from Brown v Cameron.
Good line of self-deprecation re the Queen refusing an interview.
No view on X-Factor winner.
You also noticed how over the years the 40% tax rate has crept slowly lower (in real terms)?
We really do not have a lot to show for the deficit run up do we?
Anyway got to run.
I’ve nearly turned into tim re number of posts in a day, but I expect to return to normal tomorrow when I return to work from sick leave.
assuming tim not posted 20k posts yet defending a governemnt he says he cannot vote for who reckons how long it will be before he passes this glorious milestone?
Well done Robbo.
The Tories do need a punchy poster message on IHT.
“Are you a millionaire? And dead?
No?
Then you won’t have to pay Inheritance Tax…”
Vote Conservative
Goodbye Russian Romans Rentboys.
270 - You see someone being punished after death, I see kids getting a big chunk of cash for doing nothing. We are not going to agree on this. I respect your opinion though and understand where you are coming from, I hope you can respect mine.
And with that, I bid you all a fond goodnight.
266. THe really horrible thing is the way you talk about it as if it’s the government generously offering the family money. It’s the family’s money to begin with. It’s the government that should be pathetically grateful to receive any money, just because someone has died wealthy.
Inheritance tax is little more than an assault on the concept of private property.
Gavin Esler is an excellent interviewer.
280 - Midlands Industrial Council, that was what finished of Julie Kirkbrides career a few careers ago wasn’t it?
274 I take you know of no one hit with the worry of inheritence tax just after the worry of losing a parent to for example cancer. Obviously have no concept of grieving, funeral bills, solicitors fees and then tax bills possibly leading to change of address.
Front Pages,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/The-Papers—Newspaper-Front-Pages-Thursday-December-3-2009/Media-Gallery/200912115486233?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15486233_The_Papers_-_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Thursday%2C_December_3%2C_2009
291 - Quite unbelievably an extremely negative headline by the FT,
“Industry fades under Labour”
284 - How about.
“I’m quids in, David Cameron knew my father, my father knew David Cameron
“We’re all in this together”
utd v city
villa v blackburn
4 /18 Jan
I’d swear that at PMQs Theresa May was saying bullsh*t when Cameron says “I bet that sounded great in the bunker”.
About 9:15 on this link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8390348.stm
R5L have just played one of Tiger Wood’s supposed voicemails. It’s a bit off to do that I would have thought. Though rather incriminating…
296 - What the one about deleting him from her phone and his wife is likely to call her?
271: ‘Well my family is affected,and it sticks in the craw,quite frankly.’
You have my deepest sympathies! When my dear, beloved dadda, Sophos Dawning, passed on many years ago we, like many landed families, were virtually crippled by the socialist death duties. We had to sell the house and grounds in Buckinghamshire and the thought still hurts to this day. Apparently its a conference hall and ‘team-building’ centre now, or some such obscenity! I’ve never been back - can’t stand the thought of a load of corporate spivs and clerks abseiling and driving Land Rovers all through the woods and meadows in which I used to play as a boy.
297 - Yes.
The Mirror front page is that Cameron claims for his sweets on his expenses.
And some people say The Sun is no longer a newspaper…
Jon Sopel isn’t nearly as good at disdain as Paxman - he has the disbelief and sneering tone, but not the louche indifference.
299 - How many days in the past 2-3 weeks have the Mirror had a Cameron headline? Anybody would think they have a vendetta. Imagine if the Sun did that to poor old Gordo! Mandy, the Beeb, etc would be screaming from the roof tops.
287 - it is purely and simply a death tax and should be called such - once a person has paid their taxes their assets should be their own.
A person should be able to dispose of his / her assets as they wish. That the disbursement is triggered by death should not be a factor. It’s legally yours, you paid tax on it, so it’s yours to do with what you will without the government confiscating part of it.
Cameron is good at doing ‘umble’.
Brown is bad at doing ‘confident’.
I wonder what the Labour contract with the Mirror is like?
(assuming from Mandleson’s comments about the Sun that such is how it goes)
The Sun front page is a comedy classic
The Scottish Sun is looking a bit more serious.
Has anyone told Gordo?
The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week’s Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.
In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/02/copenhagen-climate-change-james-hansen
301. If you read it you’d swear that the Mirror is written by Number 10. It’s ludicrously one sided.
LOL
The Mirror
LOL
306 - Obama will be there (for the start anyway - has to go to Oslo to get his Nobel Peace Prize) so it must be important and worthy (and devious, leftie, big government and expensive)….
301 These days, few people read the Mirror, so they don’t make news in the way that the Sun does.
290 In an odd sort of way, I feel like Southam Observer; I wouldn’t be too concerned about IHT being charged on my inheritance - however I’ve hardly inherited anything from anyone who was dear to me.
But, if it was someone who was dear to me who’d just died, paying the IHT might well feel as though it was adding insult to injury.
307 - I actually do log on to the website, as I do pretty much all national newspapers. Jeez, they have an utterly crap excuse of a website, couldn’t find the Tory Toff Cameron bashing even if I was looking for it most of the time!
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2523
Ipsos Mori poll for Scotland. SNP retain lead over Labour in Westminster voting intentions.
A most entertaining thread. I thank you.
The only place I’ve ever seen the Mirror, other than in a shop of course, is the waiting room of a hairdressers. Presumably it’s popular in Liverpool too, but otherwise…nowt.
Does anyone know what the Mirror story is about?
315 - Dave and sherbet?
298 Thanks for the concern. The harsh fact is we have had to pay a lot of money to get adequate care for my grandparents,and this iniquitous tax is the final insult.
Paul will be getting an angry call in the morning I suspect,
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/12/02/article-0-076DDFA1000005DC-852_224×599.jpg
302 The easiest way to avoid IHT is to give most of it to the children well before you die and then go to live with them in a ‘granny/grampy’ annexe. If you’re really rich the money is probably all tried up in trusts, anyhow.
Part of reason the tax is unpopular is that it is falls haphazardly, often when someone dies suddenly or becomes ‘gaga’ before they had time to plan ahead.
315 - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/maguire/2009/12/02/alistair-darling-s-war-on-rich-will-kill-david-cameron-s-con-115875-21865652/
An interesting turn of phrase “tax avoiders – legal and illegal”.
I had always understood - and it’s certainly the case here in the US - that tax avoidance in ANY form is perfectly legal (it merely means organizing your financial affairs to legally pay the least amount of tax). Tax evasion definitively means avoiding taxes illegally. Tax avoidance is reasonable and sensible. Tax evasion gets you in Club Fed.
320 - Maybe they should ask Lord Myners all about this tax avoidance stuff, I believe he is quite an expert…
320. Makes sense. Otherwise you’d have to arrest and charge with tax avoidance anyone who turned down a better paying job.
316 - am I imagining it or did sherbet used to be called Kali, and come in a cylindrical yellow package with a licorice straw?
Vermin Traitor Labour Councilor sacked for insulting Britain’s Head of State and Direct Descendent of King Alfred.
322 - Dave demanded Zac ends his perfectly legal tax avoidance you’ll find.
As a comprehensive school boy in the midlands, and former labour voter, this anti eton attack is aimed at the likes of me.
Well it doesn’t, firstly because even with his eton background mr cameron has much better communication skills with an English audience, which is where the marginals are. Eton family man, low key Christian vs twisted Scot bully? No contest.
I am also coming round to having the rich incharge, much less corruptible than greedy trougherslike the Blairs, balls etc
307 The Mirror website is written by Peter Mandelson’s mum.
325, why did he do that tim? You know the answer don’t you?
325 Tim, I think we’ve been here before. Your arguments might carry more credibility if Labour hadn’t adopted such a fawning attitude to the superrich in the past decade.
Brown and more especially Blair seemed to suspend any critical faculties when approached by businessmen. Every threat or claim for special treatment has been taken at face value. Labour displayed a combination of complete ignorance, naivety and unseemly fawning. Their present attitude to the NatWest bankers’ bonuses will be interesting.
Were these the same bankers who they knighted and then co-opted onto commissions from where they could pontificate to the rest of us on subjects from low pay to NHS funding. Then having bankrupted their banks they were allowed to depart with big severance packages and enhanced pensions.
The super-rich have done very well under Labour. The tax breaks for private equity companies and the ‘light and limited regulation’ of the financial sector are but two obvious examples. Income has been treated as capital gains and taxed as low as 10%. George Osborne’s proposal to require those with non-dom status to pay an annual levy was greeted with hysterics by Labour, who in response introduced a much watered-down scheme.
Contrast the treatment of the middle class with that of the super-rich. More of their income is taken up with tax and NIC. When the tax rate for large companies was reduced by 2% in 2008 it was increased by 3% for small companies. Final salary pension schemes have almost disappeared in the private sector.
Just a thought on all this Tory Toff anti-Eton, anti-rich attack on Cameron, does anybody who even thinks vaguely about who they are going to vote at the GE for not already know this? It seems we get this every few months, I would have thought by now anybody who is willing to listen has already heard loud and clear.
On the other hand, not sure so many people are as aware of the Labour Toffs.
324 - Thanks for the link.
“Would-be local councillor Peter White was axed by party bosses after being forced to apologise for comments he made about the diamond jubilee”
That is good news to hear.
330 Labour dont have much else to say.
305.David, what are the Sun going with tonight?
299.Is the Mirror really going with Cameron claiming sweets on expenses?
And the Telegraph going with the 5,000 bankers who are going to get a million quid too, going to screw the Labour attack on the Tories as the party of the rich strategy again.
Today has turned into another Brownite Shakespearian tragedy. Wasn’t Blair’s man Jonathan Powell who predicted that would be the case.
I see that the FT has also scuppered NickP’s secret marginals strategy to try and portray Tory councils as Thatcherite.
What a day, I missed Brown’s robust performance, only caught the ‘playing fields of Eton’ attack, and I knew that he had stepped into another hole he had dug for himself. And the PLP were cheering him on just as they did at that infamous PMQ’s last year as well.
Priceless.
327 She still hopes he will settle down.
Muckguire carries on the theme in the mirror. its desperate stuff.
331. Yes - although I think it’s a pity someone gets sacked by his party for openly expressing sentiments that are widely shared in private by his colleagues in that party.
So, according to the Daily Mirror, David Cameron claimed £1.65 on expenses.
So, according to the Daily Mirror, David Cameron claimed £1.65 on expenses.
When you put it against those Toff Labour Lords and their expense claims while living in Housing Association properties, it puts it into perspective.
tim
On your offer of a bet on the Tories vote share, I have decided upon research to decline. 45%+ would take us back to 1970 when the Liberals only polled 7.5% and others 3.0%. Given Labour’s current weakness, I can see the Tories polling over 40% - say 42%-28%-20%-10%, but this far out I would be looking for better than evens on a 40%+ bet.
I remain of the opinion that the Tories should be aiming at 45% as their GE ’stretch’ target but believe it would need unknown events above and beyond expected Brown mistakes for them to hit it. I might bet commercially on odds of 9/1 or better, but even if offered would probably look for better value elsewhere.
Thanks anyway for pushing me into a more reasoned approach to the original “expectation”.
I am in the do something just in case when it comes to man made Climate Change but this guy on R5L is making me want to build half a dozen coal fired power stations.
333 - Christine. English edition going with Tiger, Scottish with the sad fire murder.
The Mirror splash is surely embarrassing to all in Canary Wharf.
336 Yes. Shame we cant arrest them all for treason.
Although, that could be changed after the next election - along with the reinstatement of the Death Penalty for treason.
341 The Scottish Sun comes across as very provincial.
“Scottish Firemen rescue Scottish Cat stuck in Scottish tree Drama!”
Another 5,000 lawyers could find themselves out of work next year as City law firms undergo a new round of swingeing job cuts, bankers close to the profession have forecast.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/support_services/article6941559.ece
336. Good job he didn’t criticise the Queen for allowing her grandsons to attend Eton. That would have been embarrassing…
What exactly did Cameron claim the chocolate expenses for? I can’t find the story on the Mirror website.
Presumably it wasn’t ACA?
By God, Mark Oaten looks old.
345 It is their local school.
Bussing them across to Slough would not be very green.
Whilst I don’t really like IHT in principle, I can accept the tax itself. My big issue is that it is applied so appallingly.
In the last few years, two people I know died. One was an extremely rich businessman, who was a multi millionaire. On his death, his estate was tiny and IHT wasn’t an issue.
The other was an ex civil servant in the South who just had a house. There was IHT to pay on his estate (despite the desparate efforts of some of his Labour supporting relatives who suddenly found themselves having to pay the rich mans tax).
The difference was obviously that the rich person took tax advice but the poorer one didn’t. Fair?
Or what about people who are relatively cash poor but have large assets. I know of a few companies which would be in serious trouble if one of the shareholders died unexpectedly. Their beneficiaries will have very large IHT bills to fund with no liquid assets. Companies have been sold and jobs lost to pay the tax. Fair?
Or what about the people who lost a loved one suddenly and unexpectedly. Not only do they need to deal with this loss, but they have to get involved with the tax man to prove there is no tax to pay before they can sort out the affairs. Many people in this situation are totally out of their depth, and are put under a lot of extra stress, even though there is no tax to pay. In such circumstances legal bills are often run up. Fair?
Even worse, if a loved one becomes terminally ill, many people find themselves getting involved with this, when they should be concentrating on caring. Fair?
I don’t like the tax in principle, but I hate it for the way it effects the poorer, less well advised and sometimes plain unlucky and is so easily avoided by the rich. If someone sorted these issues out then I would have far less problem with it.
Sorry for the rant.
Who on earth is advising Gordon about this “playing fields of Eton” nonsense? Good effort, mind - shows Gordon as the spiteful, bile-spewing crass warrior he really is.
If it weren’t for the playing fields of Eton, we might have lost at Waterloo - and ended up being French.
And then German…
Bill Leckie isn’t a fan of posh people.
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/papercolumnists/billleckie/2755931/As-thick-as-the-plank-they-brshould-be-made-to-walk.html
Actually the scottish sun leads with a horrific murder case.
Not a story of a rich sportsman who can’t keep his club and balls in his bag.
Obviously aimed at middle England’s thirst for more inane crap to make themselves feel better.
341.David, thought the Scottish Sun would go on this terrible story.
343.You really are a complete idiot, go read the story!!
Today does have a feeling of normality about it.
People say how well Brown did at PMQs and how Cameron, who has failed again to destroy Brown in one go ‘must’ do this or that, show some backbone, take a rest, turn blue, have a sex change, carry an ax or whatever.
And then as time goes on it becomes apparent that Brown has made another disastrous decision on how to make a fight back. Lies and class war.
This is the political equivalent of Life on Mars. He has gone back to the fantastically successful days of Foot to find the key to success. And here it is!
What a leader he has been shown to be now he has escaped the attic once occupied by Mrs Rochester.
I have just seen the Mirror front page, the Fizzy Rascal headline over the champagne was good. But this one is excruciatingly bad for the Mirror.
352 Isnt “Shcottish Cat up Shcottish Tree” page 1?
It is probably on pages 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 & 12.
352 - It’s pretty harrowing coverage now that the young man has been found guilty. We have lots of stuff from the girl’s family.
For some strange reason ‘Sky Front-Pages’ does not have the Sun’s (non-Scottish edition) any idea what it is?
357 ‘Sky Front-Pages’ also does not have the front page of the Norwich Bugle.
Apparently a camera was found on the No212A Bus.
FT story on manufacturing decline
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f32a3392-df7a-11de-98ca-00144feab49a.html
358 – A shocking over-sight I’m sure Ken. . .how will the denizens of Norwich cope with such an outrage?
Labour and BBC have been spinning that the rate of unemploynment increase is going down.
The Sun reckons Labour is fiddling the figures by classing unemployed men over 60 as pensioners
350.David, I doubt that Bill Leckie will have many fans of his own tomorrow with that garbage. Very poorly researched, and he needs to remember that the Falklands and a more recent excursion by our Royal Navy holds both painful and embarrassing memories. He really didn’t think about his audience with this one, or the our history with the Navy in the very area’s that his paper will be selling tomorrow.
357 - I think The Sun print time is later than most other papers. The headline is….
A pic of Tiger Woods with the headline
‘I’ve let my wife down, I’ve let my family down’
(and he’s let his trousers down)
There’s a story today about villagers trying to save school in Orkney which has no pupils.
We’ve got a memo to Roger Federer that we’re watching him as part of the Gillette Three
361 - actually I’ve been wondering about this, my best pals husband was made redundant, he’s 63 and was put on pension credit. I thought it weird at the time. Also, I wonder how many people there are like me out there, made redundant but haven’t signed on yet.. it’s only been 2 months.
I know my son’s fiance didn’t sign on the 2 times she found herself unable to work. Also after 6 months you don’t get JSA if you have other income, like a working spouse. The numbers are made up. Unfortunately the amount no longer going into the treasury coffers is real money lost.
364.David, not surprised, it feels like the community is dying if the school goes.
363 “I let my wife down as well as my family and my trousers”.
Tee hee. Like it.
Personally I hope the wife takes him to the cleaners because he is stupidly rich and gets hot women offering to polish his No 7 wood 10 times a day.
363.David, I just choked on my coffee at that headline!!
Now which paper will win tomorrow, the Mirror and Dave’s sweetie wrappers, or the Sun on Tiger? I know who my money is on.
369 Jealous? You bet.
366.Kristin, a pension credit for a man under pension age?
363 – Thanks David for the headline
I’m just glad the whole embarrassing charade is out in the open at last, it was an insult to the intelligence.
The Daily Mirror used to be the Pepsi to the Sun’s Coke.
Today, the Mirror is the Panda Cola.
371 ChristinaD, read the Sun’s story.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2754514/Labour-accused-of-covering-up-true-jobless-total.html
If true, the correct jobless figure is 230000 higher(*) than Labour claims.
(*) at least…
I didn’t pay much attention yesterday but I know we had something about people being bunged onto the pensioner list to take them off the jobless list.
One of the interesting things I found when working on constituency profiles for Dods was that the unemployment figres were often described in percentage change from 1997 (dunno why they pick that year) but that little scam now looks bad when the percentages are no longer showing huge drops.
Mike Russell sounds like an excellent education minister - his policies basically sound like Gove’s policies, possibly without a pupil premium.
http://www.scotsman.com/latestnews/Mike-Russell39s-words-come-back.5879333.jp
373 - Simon, I would like to claim credit that I smelt a rat the moment we got the story through. I posted as much.
It was the 1am comment that got my antennae up being that that was about 12 hours before the story broke.
There’s going to come a point where the people who endlessly hark back to the ‘lessons’ of Crewe and Nantwich are going to look like old soldiers fighting the wrong battle. Just because it didn’t work in that precise way, at that exact time, in that particular constituency, doesn’t prove that the Tories have no vulnerability on this point at all.
376. The key point is that he said all of those things “in a series of articles written before he returned to Holyrood as an MSP in 2007″.
He was in a real free-thinking mode at that time, a bit like Michael Portillo after losing his seat. I’ve no idea whether he still believes all that stuff, but the chances of him being allowed by his colleagues to implement much of it are almost nil. He was appointed to that role because of his personal qualities, not because of what he wrote in those articles.
wow from - that FT story..
“Manufacturing accounted for more than 20 per cent of the economy in 1997, when Labour came to power critical of the country having too narrow an industrial base. But by 2007, that share had declined to 12.4 per cent.
Although the recession of the early 1980s dealt a permanent blow to the industrial heartlands, the relative devastation of manufacturing during the past 12 years has been almost three times faster.”
The figures come from the ONS. Well, seeing as a lot of Labour supporters quote Thatcher as pure evil.. I wonder what they will make of this. I hope DC brings this up at QT.
378 - This may be true, but we at least have some evidence that it didn’t work.
Evidence that it could work is rather lacking at present as far as I can see. The reaction to todays events doesn’t seem to be suggesting much success so far either.
That unemployment story looks bad.
No wonder Tiger is in intense marriage councilling, and that voice mail is really bad.
376.wibbler, good stuff, but be in no doubt that the SNP are in a deep hole over their performance in education. And the Council are getting a good verbal bashing in a good old fashioned attempt by the SNP to pass the blame to them for the current mess. The SNP were making the promises and writing the cheques, but the councils were left picking up the tab for a lot more than education when the SNP froze the council tax.
323 TimB my bro! When I was a kid, it was called Barratt’s sherbet, and came in the yellow cylindrical package with red writing and a licorice straw.
376.Wibbler, don’t surprised if there has not been a wee bit of a Tory influence here, there is a budget coming in the not too distant future. Won’t be a surprise if this turns out to be a deal.
Incidentally, if by any chance His Holiness, Pope Ezio Auditore the Great, formerly of this parish (but now inexplicably excommunicated) is lurking, there seems to be some kind of weird fault on Blogger tonight, so I’m not entirely sure whether I’ve responded to your comment once, seven times or not at all. But in essence my answer was ‘yes’!
377. Havent the Sun got there figures wrong, surely it is 2.75 million, not 1.75 million on the dole.
386 there = their
doh
381. Keith, I presume Labour would have trialled it in focus groups or internal polls before going down this road. And if it fires up their own side, the value of that in itself shouldn’t be overlooked.
James Kelly we are back to Sir Humph.
Do you support an inheritance tax break for millionaires?
Do you agree that only millionaires should pay inheritance tax?
387 - That would be the number claiming jobseekers’ allowance. It is a significantly lower number than the real unemployment figure. I have the October numbers in front of me and it is 1.58m, the same indicator in 1997 was 1.43.
389. Well, in a way that’s the point with that sort of internal polling - you see which exact form of words people are most responsive to. It may sound daft, but isn’t that why Labour in the mid-1990s suddenly switched from ‘education and health’ to ’schools and hospitals’?
That would not win any vote. A picture of the ‘Buller’ in full flow, arrogant and cocky, delivered correctly (focus group after focus group will be tried by Mandy and Campbell to find the best method) then it will stick.
The Badger Darling seems better than the twit Boy George
I think the main problem for Cameron at the moment is maybe that he is - in a virtual sense - already The Establishment. And I think that’s why his polling figures are starting to descend at the moment. People are assuming he’s already the next PM; are thinking he might be getting a bit self-congratulatory about it (no matter how many glasses of champagne he doesn’t drink in public), and are deciding to kick him a bit when asked by pollsters how they’re going to vote. Brown is pitied and therefore not considered to be a serious contender at the next election.
393 - They can’t keep hoping one photo will win an election!
Also interesting was the point that John Curtice made in his recent Independent article about how ComRes polls have consistently shown that Labour and the Tories are more or less level in terms of which party people ‘generally identify with’. So it could be that Labour still have a chance if they can somehow find the magic formula that drives people back to their instinctive loyalties in spite of a great many misgivings, as the Tories managed in 1992.
395 - “the magic formula that drives people back to their instinctive loyalties”
But that only applies to the core voters of any stripe, not the swathes of floating voters that win elections.
396. I;m not talking about the real hard core of Labour support - I’m talking about the (I think) 28% of voters who said they most identified with Labour in the ComRes poll, compared to 1% fewer for the Tories. I’m not quite sure what that strategy would consist of, but it would be the equivalent of the Tories bringing voters back to their ‘instinctive home’ in a late swing in 1992 by cynically banging on about “Labour’s Tax Bombshell” and a “Nightmare on Kinnock Street” in a series of doom-laden billboard posters, speeches and PEBs.
397 - If they do that, then I suspect there will be some very high in demand PR/Communications people able to command any salary they would want…
I do think they are heading down a Demon Eyes route not a Tax Bombshell route. They also have the problem that too many people are still saying they would hate to see a Brown govt after the next election. Remembering one line in his conference speech I remember Brown saying that the future wasn’t about him, but the country. Is that a hintet of a Blair-like I will stand down once the economy is back up to speed pledge possibly? Would that change the political landscape…
I have to object to the abuse given to left leaning folk!
Whether you are right wing/ left wing or a centre person, the left should not be abused - they are interested in making everyone equal. Whether that means loads of telephone calls or qualifying socialism! I dont agree with the aim but they are valid in terms of making a point! I disagree massively with it! Socialism does not have a place in this country!
398.
That’s a smart political move to save the Labour party, but given Broon’s past performance, I reckon that, far from stepping down to save them, he believes he’s the only one who can.
And, on the other hand, who will replace him? The Blair/Brown years seem to have gutted the Labour Party of much young talent, as anyone showing a smidgeon of independent thinking was knifed.
The hard copies of the papers are in. In full technicolour the Mirror splash looks even worse. I can’t recall a more embarrassing splash. Some worse in hindsight before anyone brings up things from years ago in Liverpool but nothing so obviously risible.
400 - What is the exact story Mirror are claiming?
Very interesting interview with Caroline Flint
http://www.labourlist.org/caroline-flint-interview-alex-smith
400. Yes, David, I think the Hillsborough splash does still rank as a tad more embarrassing than what the Mirror are running with, especially since so far it seems to have been the very small expenses claims that have often angered the public most.
It does depend on whether there’s actually any truth to it, of course.
Oh dear, as predicted by several on here,
Web limit on police ‘naming and shaming’ of criminals
data protection and human rights laws mean there are restrictions on what is published, how it is made public and for how long.
Officers will also need a specific reason to publish photographs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8392012.stm
401 - “Choccy Horror” an “Exclusive: Cameron claims sweets on expenses”
The bumph is not up yet so what the ‘exclusive’ is all about is anyone’s guess. The Mirror has used the “Choccy Horror” headline several times before though. In 2000 and again 2004 they ran with Britain’s favourite chocolate manufacturers ripping off customers.
it (Home Office Guidance) also states they should examine whether publishing personal details could have an “unjustifiably adverse effect” on the criminal.
So the big name and shame idea has been pretty much stopped dead in its tracks.
The Tories and Lib Dems should be all over this “name and shame” story, it just shows the complete mess the system is in, when effectively the government have proved a Daily Rant claim for them.
Mirror story now up, oh dear, what is that I can hear, scrap scrap scrap…
Most of Mr Cameron’s snack claims were made under his administrative and office allowance
MPs are allowed to claim for “meals and subsistence for interns, volunteers or permanent employees working away from their main place of employment”.
The Caramel bar was bought for 40p on May 19 this year in a Commons café called The Debate.
The 40p Mint Aero was receipted on Cameron’s claim along with “Beef £3.80”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/12/03/millionaire-tory-leader-david-cameron-claims-40p-for-chocolate-bar-on-expenses-exclusive-115875-21868701/
Sounds a lot like some intern in Cameron’s office got lunch and a candy bar for pud. The outrage….not sure even going to bother to log on later with the Timbot going mental over it.
408 - I think the sound is scrape,scrape,scrape the barrel. The claims were publicised. How on earth is this an exclusive? The Mirror risks undermining the Labour campaign by looking pathetic. If you listened to the editor after the Tory Conference on Radio 5, he was so pathetic. I have no problem with different newspapers having different views. When it is at its best, The Guardian is a very good newspaper. The Times & The Telegraph can have their moments. But this Mirror campaign is childish.
410 - Just noticed my lovely typo!
411 (cont) Maybe it was subconscious thought that they should scrap, scrap, scrap the Mirror!
OK I have just read the story and can EXCLUSIVELY reveal (well its as much an exclusive as the Mirror reading a poublic record receipt) that the story is as bad as it looks.
The claims were made under susbsistence for staff and were for chocolate bars bought from the Commons restaurant.
Basically the story, The Mirror suggests, will raise questions about Cameron’s staff SNACKING AT THE TAXPAYERS’ EXPENSE.
This wouldn’t look out of place in The Onion or Newsarse.
Times on Ali Campbell back in the fray..
“Alastair Campbell back on front line, helping Gordon Brown’s class war”
Alastair Campbell rejoined the political fray yesterday, apparently helping Gordon Brown to deploy class-war politics against David Cameron.
The Prime Minister, in his most combative Commons performance for months, peppered the opposition leader with sharp one-liners.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6941788.ece
There’s a surprise, NOT. I think his involvement will put off the voters, let’s face it no-one has heard of Coulson but AC hasn’t exactly got a good rep amongst the public at large.
Ali Campbell should be given his UB40.
Sorry
400-The Mirror is read by thick Labour voters anyway who’ve already made their minds up - that’s assuming they have even the most basic cognitive functions in between watching Jeremy Kyle and feedding Pot Noodles to their 8th illegitimate child Troy
413.That is the second time in as many weeks that the Mirror has gone after Cameron and managed to totally undermine any Gordon/Labour attack on him. They went on the photos of Cameron at remembrance day when the Gordon was getting some sympathy, and then ended up dropping him in it.
Today while Gordon is getting personal by trying to stir up a class war theme against Cameron, the Mirror go after him for giving the workers a snack. You couldn’t make it up.
414.”“Alastair Campbell back on front line, helping Gordon Brown’s class war”” According to Maguire on his blog, Campbell had nothing to do with the class war theme, apparently it was pure Gordon. But with Ali Campbell back in Downing Street helping Gordon, did they really want to start another war, albeit a class one. Sorry, but I am at the point of thinking that its not the Thick of it that is needed, but more Blackadder. Gordon, Balls, Madelson and Campbell. Who is going to play Baldrick?
417 - Who is going to play Baldrick?
Liam Byrne ?
418.Kristin, I am thinking of that Elizabethan episode where they all went off to explore the world in the hope of finding riches. What was it they came back with after getting lost, the potato? I reckon the Mirror is the ship they are sailing.
Off back to zzzzz, nite all.
Night Christina.
Morning all.
Anyone know which polls are due to come out next and when? Hope there are still some more before Christmas.
421 - Not sure, I hope we get a couple after the PBR next week.
Hi James, just read your “About” so I thought you might be interested in this which I’ve put on YouTube, (actually you probably already know about it). This clip begins at about 4:25am:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWMp3yojkxk
Oh dear…
“The father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan has criticised the government after receiving a condolence letter two years after his son died.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8389560.stm
383 They were called sherbert fountains
http://tinyurl.com/sherbertfountain
Just a thought on economic output. What are the absolute numbers as opposed to the percentages? Saying that as a percentage of total economy its shrunk is obviously bad. I’m just thinking that at the same time the economic output of the city was increasing rapidly, and pre-1986 it was relatively steady. So what effect has the change in the economy done to the percentage share of manufacturing?
Why people - and I mean real people not us sad people - go on about the 80s was that manufacturing was closed down on a large scale and nothing done to regenerate the areas and retrain/re-employ the workforce for about a decade. If manufacturing has shrunk in real terms and not just as a percentage share under Labour then the effects on unemployment haven’t been anywhere near as pronounced as they were in the 80s.
As Tories are currently arguing in favour of unemployment (from the public sector) and retraining for employment in the private sector, I take it that they see unemployment still as not an issue? When its some faceless masses getting unemployed of course, not you personally.
The Mirror’s headline “choccy horror” - a bit crap isn’t it? Surely as the expression from which it is morphed is not shocky horror, but “shock horror” - so “choc horror” is how it should read?
Plus - was there ever a more feeble front page in the history of Fleet Street?
Daily Mirror =
Interesting story from the Sun on Labour fiddling the unempyment numbers (knock me down with a feather at the shock of it!)
So - poster due. Image of lots of men of a certain late middle-age, with the caption:
“Labour thinks you don’t count” or maybe
“Labour has already pensioned you off. (And its stolen your pension…)”
13 “that reads a bit Yodaish”
Yoda doing Andrew Neil’s job on the Daily Politics would be so ace.
46 “A “the Tory party hasn’t changed, is still run by the same tiny privaleged minority who plan on feathering their own nests by making you suffer” clearly is washing.”
That would make a good Tory poster with “Tory” crossed out in red and replaced with “Labour” above and the same with “hasn’t” replaced with “has”, “still” replaced with “now” and “the same” replaced with “a”.
oops new thread