Can they relight the public’s fire?
December 5th, 2009
Will the 1990s NuLab stars bring back the magic?
The career path is well worn: a group has striking success but over the years, personality clashes emerge, they feel themselves getting stale and want a change or believe themselves constrained by the band and want to strike out on a solo career. The fans however aren’t so keen and the public’s initial interest fades. Before long, they’ve been eclipsed by newer and fresher faces. That might be the end of the story but there is another option: the reunion.
In music, so in politics. The reasons vary - a last chance to savour the spotlight before the curtain finally falls, a retreat to the familiar, perhaps even a nagging feeling that they didn’t quite achieve all they could first time round - but the aim is the same: to recapture or at least try to relive the glory days.
That Alistair Campbell is back within the fold at Number Ten, following the return earlier in October 2008 of Peter Mandelson, therefore gives the operation something of the same look of a re-forming supergroup. Unfortunately, the group’s former lead singer and one-time fan favourite isn’t interested these days.
What are the prospects for success? Few reunions ever achieve the heights reached first time round. Some end up playing the same old tunes to a diminishing and aging fan base; some try something new but get it wrong, alienating the old fans while confusing the rest of those looking on; some just crash and burn spectacularly as waning talents mix toxically with still-warring personalities. However, once in a while those reuniting manage to reinvent their earlier essence for new tastes, losing their earlier cheesiness and gaining a new credibility in the process.
Can Brown, Mandy, Campbell and team pull off the most successful political reunion of all time? The early noises - from PMQs this week, for example - are promising but the market’s changed significantly since the nineties and critics and public alike are much more sceptical than then.
In particular, the ability to get favourable reviews is much reduced and not helped by Mandy almost wilfully going out of his way to pick a fight with one of the most influential media outlets. Privileged access is not the journalistic prize it once was when there are newer and more popular groups around. The balance of power has shifted when those being covered need the media more than the media needs them.
A reunion is always a defensive move though it can be a recognition that those involved are simply moving back to doing what they did best. How will the great New Labour reunion get on? Probably better than when they were doing their own thing but they’re still sorely missing a front man and that’s a key problem that no amount of competent backing can cover. There’s also a lot of water under the bridge in 13 years and not all that disillusionment is forgotten or forgiven. Still, if Things Can Only Get Better doesn’t hit the button it did then, there’s an even deeper seam of nostalgia to mine; time to dig out The Red Flag?
David Herdson
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Nice piece David. As well as Blair not being the lead singer any more the other thing that has changed has been the whole communications environment. The internet.
The days when you could focus on a small group of willing journalists to control the media agenda have long gone. Things just move so much faster and you only have to look at Alistair Campbell’s blog to realise that he just doesn’t quite get it. It’s so horrible to read that nobody goes there out of choice.
Also the play-list is different. Lab is no longer NuLab. The soak the rich attack the toffs rhetoric might work in Labour’s Scottish heartlands but will it resonate elsewhere? Tony would have never allowed it.
Cambell has also got form and the move today on the David Kelly death ain’t going to help him.
Campbell’s skill was being able to control access to Blair, the next great thing, the current PM and for as long as the Tories couldn’t be bothered to try and form a govt, he held that power. With the feeling that the Tories will be the next govt in the media, his ability to control the narrative by controlling access has gone. Now the Tories have that power. You should never underestimate these two, but their powers have faded. In fact if Mandy is so good, then why has he been unable to get Labour moving upwards. Their ratings continue to be lower than when he arrived.
John Bercow’s sex tips
Campbell will make the Tory Toffs a bigger issue, but unlike Labour’s politicians who all have murky carefully disguised pasts (Brown, Mandelson) or presents (Prescott, Blair), the Tories need only be frank, open and honest about who they are.
Does it really offend people that people with money are keen to improve the way this country is run, or the environment. Maybe their competence with their own family’s money shows that they will also do better with the public’s money.
With government debt spiralling to over GBP 1 trillion to cover the bank purchases and bail-outs, all unnecessary according to John Redwood, they could hardly do worse.
By the way, The UKIP Campaign Bus Is Stolen.
They’re both tainted. After the McBride scandal and the expenses debacle I feel that the public want a more honest type of politics. Once these two get going the GE campaign will be anything but honest it’;ll be down and dirty. I think it’ll backfire. The music reunion comparison doesn’t fly, most golden oldie musicians still have lots of fans this lot, as I said, are tainted.
I hope that Cam & his team will keep it clean, he’ll get more respect that way and that’s what’s sadly missing in politics at the moment.
If Campbell thinks he can steal another comedian’s lines, as reported the other day, and rehash them to magic up a 4th Labour term he’s deluded.
Good thread subject David. Thanks.
I’d like to say you can’t sell the British public the same vacuous drivel twice, but then of course Tony Blair did win three times …
1. Mike, just read Campbell’s blog. ‘never knowingly slept with a tory’
What a small minded inidividual.
As for Labour, Brown is a Leninist.
Why are the Left allowed to hide their past lives unobserved by any MSM while they obliterate our economy, and yet any relatively harmless Tory Toff stuff gets full exposure?
Good Morning Comrade
Definitely, no. They are all soiled goods.
They had twelve years to make this country more liberal, more honest. They failed totally. They deserve no second chance.
Neither do the Tories. They had eighteen years, and they also failed.
9. How old are you, Curious?
I’m just curious.
Anyone who experienced Britain in the 1970s could hardly say Thatcher failed. Britain was on her last legs.
1. I wanted to gawp at the Alistair Campbell blog so I went there out of choice–doesn’t he know that you can find the Bullingdon Club picture of Cameron and co. just by typing “david cameron bullingdon” into Google? You can even find charmingly embellished versions. So if Campbell thinks it’s inaccessible, he’s a fool, and if Cameron paid money to have it taken out of circulation he’s a fool as well.
diane.. a simple google doesn’t fit in with Campbell’s narrative of rich toff’s being able to pay to have the photo removed. The man’s a bigot through and through.
Are you kidding, Tapestry? Britain in the 70s - until the “Winter of Discontent” - was about as good as it gets. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about what we have become since those times.
A great article and analogy.
On Campbell’s blog - it really is a dogs dinner. The lack of any sense of irony or self awareness in his posts is staggering.
I agree that a period of correction was necessary after the excesses and greed of some of the unions in the 70s, but the 80s “no such thing as society” attitude also saw the birth of “the underclass”… as some had predicted.
15. debatable.
Sounds like electoral suicide to me..
”
MILLIONS face a swingeing new income tax raid on their pensions under plans being considered for Labour’s “bash the rich” mini-Budget next week.
Treasury officials want to snatch up to 50 per cent of investment returns on private pension pots every year, according to Whitehall sources.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/144216/New-tax-raid-on-pensions
17. Comrades Lenin and Maxton would be proud of Comrade Gordon.
who are “the underclass”? those who populate the J Kyle show?
17. Mike Smithson - “The soak the rich attack the toffs rhetoric might work in Labour’s Scottish heartlands… “
Huh?
Not like Mike to get his facts wrong.
The most up-to-date polling evidence we have of Scottish voting intention is the Ipsos MORI Scottish Public Opinion Monitor November (fieldwork 19-23 Nov 09; sample size = 1,009):
Westminster voting intention
(+/- change from UK GE 2005)
SNP 34% (+16)
Lab 32% (-7)
Con 15% (-1)
LD 12% (-11)
Holyrood voting intention - Constituency vote (FPTP)
(+/- change from Scottish GE 2007)
SNP 36% (+3)
Lab 32% (n/c)
Con 12% (-5)
LD 12% (-4)
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2523
Mike, how on earth do you square Ipsos MORI’s poll findings with your statement that Labour’s “anti-toff” message is working in Scotland. If it is having any effect whatsoever north of the border, it would appear to be boosting the Scottish National Party.
20. typo - I was responding to Post 1, not Post 17
Even if Mandelson and Campbell aren’t as hot in the air war department as they used to be they are better than anything else Labour has. Having them on board promises a stronger ground war as well.
But to turn things round for Labour - no the public mood is set and Labour will loose-maybe by a little less.
The Sun - Exclusive:
Cameron: ‘I will not cut and run’
- TORY leader David Cameron insists he DOES have the mettle to be a wartime PM
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2759345/David-Camerons-election-vow-on-Afghanistan.html
David - “… time to dig out The Red Flag?”
Nah… it’s time to dig out this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDMJHYKrHNA
13 ruralherefordshire. You’ve got to be kidding me - Britain of the 70s as some kind of nostalgic paradise. I remember it as the time of la maladie anglaise, of el sorpasso (Italy’s GDP overtaking Britain’s), of Canada’s GDP nearly drawing level, of the British motorcycle, shipbuilding, carmaking, civil aviation and fishing industries all dying. I remember living in a house with no central heating, no insulation, no refrigerator and no telephone. When we finally got the Post Office to install the phone after months of waiting, it was a party line with a neighbour. This is your idea of paradise lost. Give me our current crisis, with our iPhones and laptops and lattes, over that any day.
20. This may be very cynical of me, Stuart, but I’m truly starting to believe that even if Labour was reduced to 15 MPs and 25% of the vote in Scotland, on the day after the election Mike would still be sticking to his mantra - “OK, so the Scottish heartlands are flocking back to Labour, but the message isn’t playing so well anywhere else.” I suppose all of us have our blind spots!
On a broader point, it’s astonishing low little coverage that poll has received, given that - a) it’s a very rare full-scale Scottish poll, b) it was conducted by a reputable comapny and a member of the British Polling Council, and c) the Westminster findings were genuinely sensational.
I am looking forward to the involvement of Mandy and Campbell in the next election. Because I want them to be remembered not for being some slick operators behind New Labour; but rather be remembered as dirt-dishers and sleaze-traders and peddlars of poison in the dirtiest election of all time - the one where the voters rejected their craft and forcefully applied the boot to Labour’s arse.
I want them both to be associated with propping up Gordon Brown, the man who will become the most reviled and ridiculed man in twenty-first century British politics. For them to be associated with decline and disaster on a scale that will provide a benchmark for the coming decades.
I want people to sneer at the idea that they were in any way great men.
I want history to drag their names through the mud.
13 I forgot the interest rates of 17% on the mortgage …
25 TimT, I think maybe irony doesn’t travel well, all the way from rural Herefordshire to your computer screen. …
re 20 and 26. Simple. Not all 59 Scottish seats can be described as “Labour’s Scottish heartlands”.
And didn’t the recent TNS poll have Labour at a higher share than it got at the general election in Scotland?
29 Marquee Mark Thanks. I frequently miss the irony, particularly from posters I don’t know that well.
31 :irony: would be the one truly useful emoticon!
& to 30. The critical issue in the election is how many seats the Tories are able to win. In terms of the overall outcome nothing else really matters and in Scotland this is largely irrelevant.
Give me Welsh/Yorkshire/East Midlands polls anytime or surveys anywhere where there are big concentrations of Tory targets.
Thus in terms of forecasting the election Milton Keynes and twenty miles round it is several times more important than the whole of Scotland.
For those missed it on Popbitch:
Q: What’s the difference between a car and a golf ball?
A: Tiger Woods can drive a golf ball 400 yards.
3. That conjurs up some really horrible mental images.
20
As 1 out of 5 Scots are basically illiterate , their voting intentions are those of a third world country..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6943751.ece
26. James
I have been rather busy with work and family recently, so was unable to contribute to Mike’s post yesterday: ‘Are LDs viewing the battle differently in the marginals?’ - with its fascinating graph.
If I had had time to say my piece I would have pointed out this truly astonishing finding from that Ipsos MORI Scotland poll:
Q: “The UK General Election next year is likely to result in either a Conservative or Labour government in Westminster.
Regardless of how you intend to vote, which do you think would be best for Scotland, a Conservative government in Westminster, or a Labour Government?”
Overall, 61% thought that a Lab UK Govt would be “best for Scotland”, and only 24% replied that a Con UK Govt would be best.
However, here is the stunning breakdown by Party Support (Westm. v.i.):
Con supporters said: CON UK GOVT 83% LAB UK GOVT 13%
Lab supporters said: CON UK GOVT 4% LAB UK GOVT 93%
SNP supporters said: CON UK GOVT 23% LAB UK GOVT 58%
But here is the most significant result -> truly flabbergasting:
Lib Dem supporters said: CON UK GOVT 11% LAB UK GOVT 75%
See Page 228 (Table 62): http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/scotland-scottish-independence-poll-computer-tables-november-2009.pdf
Nearly 7 times! more Scottish Lib Dem voters say that a Labour UK Govt is “best for Scotland” than think that a Con UK Govt is best!!!
The SLD vote is as soft as hell, and will melt like snow off a dyke in seats where the Lib Dems are out of contention, so this finding could spell utter disaster for the Scottish Tories. Just look at the large number of 2005 SLD voters up for grabs in the 4 straight LAB/CON marginals in Scotland:
Dumfries & Galloway: 4,259 SLD voters in 2005
East Renfrewshire: 8,659 SLD voters in 2005
Edinburgh South West: 9,252 SLD voters in 2005
Stirling: 9,052 SLD voters in 2005
The SLD vote will collapse in all 4 of these constituencies. For every SLD voter that goes CON, about 7 may go LAB. This could spell misery for Goldie and Cameron: they could get over 20% of the national vote share, but because the Lib Dem voters detest them, they could end up with less than 4 seats.
36 Well, you can sort of understand it, when Scottish kids are taught that “free money for life” is spelt L-A-B-O-U-R.
and “sign up for it here” is spelt “X”….
30. “And didn’t the recent TNS poll have Labour at a higher share than it got at the general election in Scotland?”
The literal answer to that question is no - Labour were on 39% in that poll. But in a sense that simply underlines my point - it’s as if only the polls/subsamples that fit this convenient narrative of Labour doing disproportionately well in Scotland are getting noticed at the moment. Mori carries at least as much weight as TNS, surely? In which case, the latest UK-wide Mori poll has Labour 6% down on 2005, while the latest Scottish Mori poll has Labour 7% down on 2005. Far from conclusive - but worthy of note surely.
39. I tell a lie - the latest UK-wide Mori poll in fact had Labour down only five points.
To an extent the return of Mandelson (and maybe now Campbell) has played on nostalgia. The political commentators, ill served by an incompetent No 10 press office, were overjoyed to have the Prince of Darkness back to play his wily tricks and drip gossip, leavened with humour, into their ears. The tricks were obvious but Mandy was indulged, the press pretending not to see what he was doing.
Thats changed, Mandy doesn’t get an easy ride on Today any more, his velvet prose interrupted by questions. This week as he offered a vision of a new nuclear industrial future he was asked why UK had sold off its previous industry to Westinghouse and he had to fall back on “I was in Europe at the time, don’t know”.
In the dysfunctional operation that is Brown’s Downing Street the old stars shine because they have a modicum of competence but the baggage of 12 years weighs down on them.
They can play the old tricks but don’t have any new ones, maybe the old tricks will still work with enough people, maybe the left wing commentators will follow their leads, but it is as David says an old band re-formed without the star player.
33. “The critical issue in the election is how many seats the Tories are able to win. In terms of the overall outcome nothing else really matters and in Scotland this is largely irrelevant.”
If the UK polls tighten to within five or six points that theory will go out the window - how many seats Labour lose/hold in Scotland will be hugely relevant to determining who wins power in that scenario.
But even supposing for a moment that you’re correct that only England matters to the electoral arithmetic, your flawed theory about Scotland is still directly relevant to that - indeed it would have to be otherwise you wouldn’t keep repeating it. As I understand it the whole point of it was/is to suggest that Labour are doing less well in marginal-rich England than the UK-wide polls would suggest. If that’s based on a bogus assumption (as I suspect it is), then the Tories’ prospects start to look just a touch less rosy.
O/T the Times reports that the Met Office has ordered a three year review of 160 years of temperature records as result of Climategate.
It reports that “The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
30. Mike Smithson - “And didn’t the recent TNS poll have Labour at a higher share than it got at the general election in Scotland?”
No, it did not. It gave Labour a 39% vote share (identical to UK GE 2005; and 1 point lower than UK GE 2005 if you counted Michael Martin in with the Lab total).
But please remember Mike: TNS-BMRB do not weight by Past Vote, do not apply a Certainty to Vote weighting, and they have always therefore greatly over-estimated the Scottish Labour vote.
The fact is that people inclined to vote Labour are the group least likely to actually cast a vote! So I suspect that Ipsos MORI are a heck of a lot closer to the truth than TNS-BMRB, although I’d say the actual situation is somewhere in-between.
Here is the TNS datasheet:
http://www.tns-ri.co.uk/_assets/files/Scottish_Market_Polls1.pdf
Note: for people interested in Scottish politics and polling, this wiki page lists all the Holyrood polls conducted in 2009. Makes pretty good reading for us SNP supporters!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_election,_2011#Opinion_polls
****** BETTING POST ******
For the first time in many months, Betfair’s odds against there being a hung Parliament have slipped below 3/1, having peaked at 4/1 just three months ago.
Were there to be a hung Parliament, it would seem very likely that the Tories would be the largest party with between 280-325 MPs. On this basis William Hills’ curiously named “Will the Government be hung out to dry?” market appears to offer attractive odds of 5.5/1 against David Cameron (or any other Tory) being Prime Minister of a Hung Parliament during 2010. This price is therefore virtually double the best available odds of 2.8/1 on there simply being a Hung Parliament.
Effectively, to achieve the same outcome by betting on the the GE Seats markets, one would need to cover the 275-299 Tory seats band at 12/1 as well as the 300-324 Tory seats band at 7/1 (both with Ladbrokes), to produce combined odds of 3.95/1. Hills’ 5.5/1 however represents a 39.2% better return and it does therefore rather appear that they have overpriced this bet.
I was only able to place a modest bet, but this may have been because Sidney was still zzzing and their stingy computer was in temporary charge.
33.
Whilst I agree with the overall point that you are making Mike, it is only fair to point out that John Major’s 1992 majority was entirely composed of Scottish Tory MPs! If the Scottish Tories had not won 11 seats (on 25.8% national vote share) in 1992 then John Major would have required the support of Paddy Pantsdown in order to form a government.
In 2010 David Cameron will certainly not be able to count on anywhere near 11 Scottish Tory MPs. That is - to put it mildly - ‘unhelpful’. Especially when one considers that he has stated publicly that he wants “to be a prime minister of the whole United Kingdom”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7876637.stm
Is is possible to be “a prime minister of the whole United Kingdom” with only (say) 3 Tory MPs?
Heads up: Cameron going on Today (presumably at 8.10)
47 “Is is possible to be “a prime minister of the whole United Kingdom” with only (say) 3 Tory MPs?”
Labour have governed for 13 years without representing rural Britain - a bigger constituency than Scotland…
So yes.
47. Your MORI survey, however, indicates that Labour are much more popular in Scotland than the Conservatives are, and this is in complete contrast to England and Wales.
Clearly, the Conservatives will do much worse in Scotland than 1992, but they’ll do much better in Wales, so it’s swings and roundabouts.
39. James Kelly - “Mori carries at least as much weight as TNS, surely?”
MORI carries much, much more weight than TNS. No question.
And one more piece of info to take into account: this Ipsos MORI Monitor is No.2 in a new quarterly series. As any statistician will tell you, a regular series of data is far more persuasive than ad hoc surveys. Eg. the fieldwork dates of ad hoc surveys can easily be timed to produce the (ahem) “right” result for the client paying the bill. Not so with a series, which runs its fieldwork independent of political events.
3. that Bercow was secretary of the ‘repatriation committee of the Monday club’ in his youth might be worth reporting. (That the Conservatives had a Monday club with a repatriation committee maybe even more so).
That the Times should choose to dig up that he gave sex tips in his early 20’s in order to discredit him and his wife just tells us that under the surface there isn’t much difference between one Murdoch newspaper and another
42 Polls certainly indicate a much bigger shift from Labour to Conservative in England than in Scotland, and a far higher proportion of Labour’s English (and Welsh) seats are vulnerable to the Conservatives than their Scottish seats are.
50. Sean Fear
I think that any honest, objective observer would have to say that in terms of maintaining the Union, political developments/events in Scotland are about 20 times more significant than political developments/events in Wales. Harsh, but true.
Sean, as a Unionist, which would you rather the Tories had a good GE in: Scotland or Wales? Be honest now!
52 If the 23 year old Bercow had looked like the 23 year old Robert Redford, no one would bat an eyelid.
However, he looked like Gollum.
#26 James
As you say “it’s astonishing low little coverage that poll has received”.
The poll being the most recent one and showing the SNP ahead for both Westminster and Holyrood.
I suppose the real distortion isn’t the ignoring of it but, as has benn pointed out by Stuart Dickson, that the results have been cherry picked and/or misreported by the Scottish media, especially the “Scottish” Sun (which has refused the publish the actual figures which I submitted to them in comment form).
At least the Daily Record allowed many comments (from others) attacking their particular distortion of the poll.
As Anthony Wells puts it at UK Polling
“A coveted gold star award for atrocious media reporting of polls for the Sun, who have managed to present the poll as showing Labour ahead by delving into the tables and taking the figures before MORI had applied their turnout filter, thus grossly overestimating Labour.”
The attempted perversion of democracy that prevails in the media in Scotland is truly breathtaking
54 Oh, I’d love us to have a 1955-type result, but you have to take your support where you can find it. Scotland has become a profoundly left wing country, since then.
William Hill - “Will the Government be hung out to dry?”
Gordon Brown (or any other Labour politician) to be Prime Minister in a Hung Parliament in 2010 -> 4/1
David Cameron (or any other Tory politician) to be Prime Minister in Hung Parliament in 2010 -> 11/2
Any other politician from any other party to be Prime Minister in a Hung Parliament in 2010 -> 100/1
57. Sean Fear - “Scotland has become a profoundly left wing country, since then.”
Wrong. The fact is that Scotland has become a profoundly pro-Scottish country since then.
Sean, the crucial thing to remember about the astounding Tory success in 1955 was that back in those days the main Tory party in Scotland was the Unionist Party, independent of London control. Think about it.
Isn’t there something not quite kosher about Cameron announcing that if he becomes PM he’ll give all the soldiers in Afghanistan £5000! Can any politician offer any bribe they feel like?
Kirsten. Upthread. Difficult for the Tories to dismiss Campbell and Mandy for sleazy pasts when the Tories are employing Coulson!
Sean, in 1955 the Scottish Unionist Party was a “one nation” party - ie. very “left wing” compared to the modern English Conservatives.
The modern Scottish Tories under Annabel Goldie are still far to the left of their English colleagues.
It is a grave mistake to assume that Scottish Toryism is anything to do with right-of-centre politics. Scottish Toryism is a (declining) cultural badge, not a badge about attitudes to economic policy.
Cameron supports not letting banks set off taxes against losses.
Stuart - 59. The two points are not mutually exclusive.
47. You could have said the same of any 11 Tory MPs. In reality, Major’s majority was comprised of the Maastricht rebels.
These two geniuses seem to have decided that the best way of fighting the GE is to insult as many of the voters as possible. We’ve already had ‘toffs’ and ‘flat-earthers’: several more to come over the next few months, I guess.
49. Marquee Mark
But during the last 13 years the Labour Party has had lots and lots of MPs representing rural constituencies. Certainly about 10 times more rural Labour MPs than PM Dave will have Scottish Tory MPs!
And I don’t think that “rural Britain” is campaigning for membership of the UN.
46/58 I simply can’t undertand why Hills have priced Gordon Brown at a shorter price than David Brown to be the Prime Minister of a Hung parliament in 2010. presumably this is intended to reflect his would-be reluctance to stand down even were Labour to lose by a significant measure to the Tories.
That said, Hills’ wording is curious, since it suggests that one could win twice were both to be Prime Minister during the year.
For my money, however, the whole rationale and the value element within this market is to back Cameron only.
59, 61
I think you’re proving my point. Scots object to the economic policies that are associated with Conservatism. And the Conservatives in Scotland have to run to the left of the national party, because of this.
Odd that seanT seems to have disappeared from PB since announcing he was now a LibDem supporter…….. perhaps he’s become bored with the idea.
William Hill - Edinburgh South West (incumbent: Alistair Darling)
Lab 4/7
Con 13/8
SNP 16/1
LD 16/1
If the Tories don’t win this seat, then where exactly are they going to win? Honestly. Please, please tell me where on earth is going to elect a Scottish Tory MP if not the lush, privileged and affluent suburbs of the Scottish capital?
The punters don’t give the Scottish Tories much cause for cheer.
Shadsy, please please please give us a market for Dumfries & Galloway, Stirling and Argyll & Bute. I just want to see how many punters are willing to put their hard-earned cash on the Cons in those key marginal seats. It is “money where mouth is” time.
67. Sean Fear
Nope. The Tories in Scotland have to divorce themselves from the English Conservative Party because of this.
The word “Conservative” is the Scottish Tories ‘cement shoes’.
http://www.susan03.com/isketch/images/af/con_cement_shoes.gif
69 Stuart, speaking of “money where mouth” is time, presumably you’ve put your money on the Tories winning 0-3 seats in Scotland, ie the outsider of Ladbrokes’ three bands?
“Unfortunately, the group’s former lead singer and one-time fan favourite isn’t interested these days.”
Tony Blair as Robbie Williams?
66 Pfp - I suspect that many people have got money on Brown to win (I am one). It isn’t that we hope, or even think he will win.
It is a disaster insurance policy, rather like life insurance. You don’t pay regular contributions to a fund hoping that you will meet your maker, do you?
Charlie Whelan tweets
http://twitter.com/charliewhelan/status/6365044664
He’s obviously rattled because he knows Cameron looks good out there.
Good Morning World Cup Draw Voters For Nick Palmer Worldwide
Meanwhile …. 68 PfP. I think you’ll find that SeanT is undergoing intense Lib Dem indoctrination in Thailand. This involves six “lady boys” massaging “Essence of Barchart” vigourously into the applicants nether regions followed by a twelve part exam on the “History of STV” and then an exchange of body fluids with an aged Tibetan Lib Dem Focus Leaflet Guru.
The whole process is finalized at the EU HQ in Brussels where SeanT will be racked to the four corners of the EU and then pressed under the entire weight of EU Regualtion ZX/4580123/EU on the size of carrot and corriander quiche in Suffolk.
Such devotion to the cause is rare indeed !!
73 JSK - I fully understand the idea of your disaster insurance policy, I have a number of such bets myself, it’s just that odds of 4/1 in this instance appear just stinking awful - there are a number of far better returns to be had by backing Labour on other markets. I’d rate this bet at 7/1 or 8/1.
(Previous thread)
Did someone mention Simon Heffer? I saw him at a by-election meeting in Bromley.
Did someone mention a tube station? I saw Lord Molyneaux at a tube station.
Did someone mention a supermarket? I saw Jenny Bond in a supermarket.
Did someone mention Portillo? I saw him at a by-election meeting in Kensington & Chelsea.
Did someone mention crossing the road? I saw Robert Wareing crossing the road once. He looked like Hugh Lloyd.
Did someone mention “Downfall”? I think I’ll watch it again in the next few days. I’ve just finished reading “Hitler: Nemesis 1936-1945″ by Ian Kershaw. It describes the scene on 22nd April 1945 when Hitler asked Jodl, Keitel and Krebs [and Burgdorf, according to the book] to stay in the room, while he dismissed the others, and then did his worst-ever tantrum.
75 Jack W - you may of course be correct, except that I recall him last posting mid-week in the departure lounge, awaiting his return flight to the UK, before moving into his newly-acquired pad.
David, an amusing article and they will have earned their money if they succeed.
Isn’t it difficult to drape yourself in the red flag and present yourself as on the side of the less well off against the toffs when:
1. You have presided over a widening of the gap between the rich and poor.
2. Pursued policies resulting in the worst ever youth unemployment
3. The size of manufacturing in the whole economy has halved and in the area I know best, here in north Hampshire, we see state-of-the-art factories in IT and pharmaceuticals closing, while billions are poured into propping up the financial sector because it was not properly regulated.
4. For the past decade you fawned over the very bankers you now castigate, extolling the ‘light and limited’ regulation of the financial sector, rewarded key figures like Sir Fred Goodwin with knighthoods and co-opted them onto commissions where they have pontificated to the rest of on issues such as low pay.
5. Allowed hedge funds to treat income as a capital gain and taxed this at rates as low as ten percent.
6. Gone into hysterics when George Osborne proposed that those with non-dom status pay a levy, only to reluctantly respond with a much watered down alternative.
At the same time final-salary pension schemes have all but disappeared in the private sector, impoverishing the retirement of many citizens who have hitherto prided themselves on their independence.
I can’t see even Campbell or Mandelson being able to get away with it.
Great post by TimT @ 25. Nails the issue completely. I too remember waiting months to get a phone installed. Why the hell did the state provide electronics for your house?!!! It just about sums up the lunacy of 1970s Britain, the sheer inefficiency, the restrictive working practices that nobbled our industry through the unions and just about wrecked many of them. The successful businesses that didn’t invest because they were threatened with nationalisation. That significant parts of the Left in the country actually had links with Soviet Russia and to varying degrees thought socialism would prevail. Quite a number of our present day senior Labour politicians were part of this. They helped wreck our economy (as they are doing now) and then had the cheek to try and blame Conservatives for dealing with the mess.
Has there been clarification of Robert’s bet on Buckingham? Does “50% more than” mean 70:20 ish or 60:40 ish?
78 PfP. So, SeanT has passed the first phase and only requires the EU part of the test to become a fully fledged Lib Demmer. I wonder if he’s got any sandals yet ??
80 Gordon Brown is happiest, though, when he’s in the gutter, flinging mud. I think he’ll be quite good at it, in the run up to the next election.
It will impress some people, outside of the more economically dynamic parts of the country. Labour have written off London, the South East, and the M1, M4, and M6 corridors, in order to retain as much of their core as they can.
Well, there don’t seem to be many Campbell fans on this thread, but this is one of those “everybody I know thinks…” dividing lines that we sometimes come across. Everyone I know who’s expressed an opinion thinks Campbell is enormously impressive, and many of them read his blog religiously every day, so Mike is out of touch with them when he blithely claims that nobody reads it out of choice. It’s partisan, but in an intelligent way (e.g. the piece today on the tricky issues when partners disagree), in a way that most partisans are not. In general I don’t think most people here ‘get’ the wavering ex-Labour core voters - they project their own feelings onto them, or categorise them into some dismissive category (all benefit recipients is the most common one). That’s a risk if one bets on politics.
And Ted’s assertion that “Mandy doesn’t get an easy ride on Today any more” is one of those ‘misty golden age’ things. I remember his last time as a Minister very well, and he was constantly under siege. As for Today, it’s par for the course that they interrupt all the time - a very irritating habit.
There is, however, a cautionary point: clever strategists should beware of becoming the story, good fun though it is.
Interesting as always,PfP but I can’t abide ambiguity, so I won’t be joing in your very reasonable looking punt.
Playing around with the figures you can cover(almost) every eventuality by Backing Labour Most Seats at 7-1 or 8.0 digital, a Tory Overall Majority at 1.46 or better, and finally Backing Tory 275-299 at 12-1 and 300-324 at 7-1.
This represents a Book of 101.2% and although you LOSE everything at 325 precisely, it gives you DOUBLE wins possibly on a Tory Seat total of 275 up to 284 maybe .
What all this demonstrates is that there is at the very least *fair value* out there, especially if you can beat those advertised prices on Betfair.
79. Voreas. If I was one of what Tim calls ‘the herd’ I would by now be begging Mike to have you banned for the erroneous use of the word ‘fraudster’…. Christina would be on the smelling salts…..but we ‘bots’ are made of sterner stuff!
Totally agree with MG (81) and TimT (25). In an ‘A’ level Economics essay I was marked down for suggestion that telecommunications was something that could be provided by business rather than the state.
Comments such as ‘Who would provide the telephone directory’, ‘you would have multiple cables, it isn’t sensible’, etc. I did write a reply, my Economics teacher threw my reply away.
Why would the country get excited about Campbell and Mandelson being back together. It now knows (though some of us knew all the time) that it only served up spin, slease and sh1te. They were part of Team Blair which has led this country to the point of financial ruin. They deserve to go down and hopefully will lead Labour to utter destruction next year.
74 Charlie Whelan’s return to Gordon’s circle (backed by Unite’s muscle) was perhaps more important than Mandelson & Campbell’s in developing the current strategy.
The meetings Mandelson was so unhappy about (Balls, Whelan, McGuire, McBride and occasionally Byrne and Watson) might have been officially disbanded but one does wonder…..
82. “50% more than” surely means 1.5x:x rather than x+0.5y:x where x is the number of votes UKIP win and y is the total vote cast? It might be worth asking Robert to clarify though.
Stuart Dickson, There are no Labour MPs in a wholly rural area in Cornwall or Devon. Where are these “Lots and lots”? Labour is really just a party of the cities. It is dead in the rural areas and dying in suburban ones.
70. I do not see how you can say Scotland is not left wing. It is the most socialist place I have ever stayed in including China and East Germany. In many ways Scotland is closer to Northern Ireland than Wales or England in the way it votes with tribal loyalties critical. The best way for the Tories to build up their base in Scotland is to turn around Northern England. Make the key roads dual carriageways and transfer business up there.
I read the FT this week which showed that we lost 40% of our manufacturing base under Labour but only 10% of it under Thatcher. It is time the Tories went on the attack against Labour which has been more supportive of the City than the Tories ever were. Mandelson’s slime cannot hide the brutal facts that Labour has abandoned industry.
85 Name some names of these people who enjoy his blog.
Labour in general get a much easier time in the broadcast media. I don’t think anyone seriously doubts that. In fact Labour used to argue that they had such an easy time as it would make up for the press being against them. Fact is for 15 years most of the press and the broadcast media have been with them, hence they couldn’t use the argument any more. that doesn’t mean that the broadcast media weren’t still favourable to them.
87 You carry on Rog. I always find your posts very entertaining.
88 One forgotten aspect of the old telecoms regime in the 1970s is the patronage it gave to MPs. When I met my wife in Liverpool she extolled Eric Heffer because he used his influence to get a telephone installed in her granny’s house.
89
Yeah! but, ‘Campbell’ great name, and he’s sh*t hot at the bagpipes, so he’s not all bad.
Oh in case you are interested, my wife’s family come from Scapoli in Italy, where bagpipes were invented, they’ve even got a museum of bagpipes there. They have an annual bagpipe festival, so make enquiries and next years hols are sorted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapoli
89
Oh! I’ve just had a thought, are you a MacDonald? Oh dear.
92 There were a number in 1997, though.
Usually, where a Labour MP represents a rural area, it’s because there’s a fair-sized town with a big rural hinterland (eg Scarborough, in 1997 & 2001) or because there a lots of former pit villages in the seat (such as seats up in Durham) .
80. All of which is why Labour will focus their energy on the Tories rather than their own record.
You’re quite right: Labour has its work cut out to get most seats, never mind win, but if you’re going to “drape yourself in the red flag and present yourself as on the side of the less well off against the toffs” you do it by banging on incessantly about the other side and bashing enough toffs to distract from what they did (or didn’t do). Add in 50% top income tax (so far) and other taxes on the rich and there might be enough of an image to get the message across. Whether there are enough people who’ll buy the message is a different matter.
Eton and proud of it!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6175316/david-cameron-eton-conservatives.html
Or perhaps not.
Was this posted before?
“Pre Budget report: Alistair Darling wins battle with Brown over inheritance tax”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/6729931/Pre-Budget-report-Alistair-Darling-wins-battle-with-Brown-over-inheritance-tax.html
On Topic: No. Video killed the radio star.
101 A pity.
If labour really want to re-engage the public they need to admit they have been too authoritarian over the last 12 years eat a lot of humble pie, and re-define themselves as a party which will be the guardians of democracy, and freedom of speech and individual liberty.
The public see them as arrogant, controlling, hungry for power for its own sake rather than the good of the people. I think however it is far too late for deathbed repentance, judgment awaits!
re 85. Nick - my comment was about the awkward way that Campbell’s blog operates. The text is in a very small frame and it’s horrible having to scroll when you want to read more than a para.
People like it all to be on one page as we found out here on PB in the summer.
Anyone who read Campbells diaries should know how he believes in keeping the message simple.
The simple agenda Labour want to set is that they are the Party for everyone whereas the Tories are the party for the rich.
I would have thought this a difficult sell but inexplicably the Tories have walked into an elephant trap.
25. TIMT , Life in the 70’s was much better than the cesspit we have today. We may not have had as many gadgets but life was good.
@107:
I’m sorry. A life without Internet access can barely be called a life. It was a vague, dreary shadow half-existence, devoid of meaning.
I’ve moderated Voreas @79.
malcolmG at 107.Quite right; and I was almost forty years younger in 1970 under the Tories than I am today under Labour.
malcolmG December 5th, 2009 at 9:44 am “Life in the 70’s was much better than the cesspit we have today. We may not have had as many gadgets but life was good.”
You must be joking.
But another year of Brown and life might be better in the 70s.
The UEA professor on Newsnight told Murano ”Will you shut up!” and at the end of the interview he said of Murano ”What an arsehole!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8WDcQon9DY
36. Mad, seems we are determined to bring ourselves down to English levels, once again we follow where they lead, what benefits the union brings us.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1570895/England-slides-down-world-literacy-league.html
105 The Conservatives’ danger is to be seen as representing the rich (all polls show that). Labour’s danger is to be seen as representing the very poor and minority groups (polls show that).
At present, peoples’ perceptions of Labour are worse than their perceptions of the Conservatives.
Voreas ex of 79. Apologies if my light hearted post at 86. contributed to the blackballing of your post. Nonetheless what’s gone is gone so pick youself up dust yourself down and get back on your horse. Cameron needs you now more than ever.
malcolmG (106) - presumably you were in a trade union then? I can’t think of anything better, apart from some good TV sitcoms and decent music on the radio.
There again, the classic TV (Fawlty Towers, for example), could take the mickey out of the appalling standard of customer service at the time.
It generally didn’t matter because businesses were protected, so you could give the customer what you felt like (Marina, Allegro, etc).
The problem in the 80’s was that the unions and businesses who kept supplying rubbish found they didn’t have a market.
Please remind me, if you went outside the UK in the 1970s, how much money could you take? Can you remember?
27 - works for me!
108 silenced in my prime, I don’t know Big Brother is everywhere these days
Seriously though the point remains Campbell is widely regarded as a nasty piece of work not least due to issues surrounding dodgy dossier and Mandleson is almost synonymous with sleazy dealings. Coulson in comparison is a saint.
Nate Silver of 538.com has put the world cup draw through his super computer. http://bit.ly/7utOk8
Paraguay look a good bet to win their group.
113. That’s true. In a Toffs v Oiks contest there will be only one winner which is why Labour are going to be smarter than that.
I see in the Times that Brown has done a U-Turn and is now demanding ‘Savage Investment’ from Darling and Whitehall
Gordon Brown tries to reassure market with early Whitehall cuts
110. TC , I earn about 40 times what I did in the 70’s and have loads of gadgets, but I really think life was much better then. We had dodgy cars, party lines , etc but life was great , much better attitudes to work, social life etc. Definitely a huge improvement on today despite all the supposed advances.
re 119. As smart Roger as the Dave the Chameleon effort that you were so pleased about when Labour launched in in April 2006.
As I recall you kept on telling us that this was brilliant.
114 Easy come, easy go, no hard feelings.
I imagine Cameron appreciates all you have done for him over the years as well Roger.
119: Roger, aren’t Labour seen as the party of the benefit dependent (to put it nicely). That is very dangerous for Labour across the whole country.
119. “Labour are going to be smarter than that.”
The form book suggests otherwise…
120 - It seems ludicrous to think that the markets will be “reassured” by Darling pledging political gimmicks to try to embarrass the Tories, masquerading as “future action to cut the deficit”.
1. Mike, I’m sure you’ll find that the Kelly/Doctors story is the same conspiracy theory pushed by Dr David Halpin that he has been peddling for years.
Kellys wife and family are convinced that he committed suicide, the murder theory is the preserve of the crazed.
119 et al I don’t know if you’re ever read Terry Colman’s account of the 1987 election, but it really is an excellent account of where Labour went wrong, in PR terms.
They produced a load of posters with themes like “divided Britain” “racist Britain”, which Labour’s PR team thought were brilliant, and which appealed to committed Labour supporters, but which reinforced the view among swing voters that Labour was the party for losers.
Blair’s skill lay in realising that this image had to be jettisoned.
115. JSK, Yes I can and it was not much, but we piled into our old car and hit the road. It may be down to being young and full of the joys of life but I have fond memories of the 70’s and I had no interest whatsoever in unions even though I initially had to join one when I worked for the PO, have not been in a union for the last 34 years though. Life was definitely simpler then and lots less hassle, we have wrecked the country since then , not improved it and bot Tories and Labour share the blame, hard to know which is worst.
121. Sorted!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FatHLHG2uGY&feature=related
126 Darling is like a fairly decent minister of an awful Roman emperor, trying to keep the finances on an even keel, while his master has other intentions.
Asking people to vote for Status Quo? No thanks. It’s time for New Kids On The Block.
“As I recall you kept on telling us that this was brilliant”
In it’s way it was. They hit the spot. So much so that to deflect criticism that he was flibbertigibbet he wisely changed into the rather sober dull politician we see today.
But you can’t blame the advertisers if the product changes otherwise what would you say to ‘Sattchis’ for ‘Not flash just Gordon’?
133. was for Mike at 122.
If The Telegraph is right about the reductions in Income Tax receipts Darling’s position is going to be weaker, particularly if receipts from Corporation Tax having been dropping as a result of falling profits.
Not sure that The Gruadian’s headling about Brown attack on climate change critics as flat earthers is helpful. If the UEA mob have been fixing the data to support the theory, if Jones is forced out because of attempts to rig the peer review process, Brown will be seen as someone who thinks that institutionalised corruption is fine. Howwever, he might have some form…
re 127. so these doctors are “crazed”? Come on Tim. This is one issue where I think that you are crazed and I can only conclude that you are yourself are desperate to keep something under wraps.
The Kelly death has never been subject to the standard form of judicial process that just about every other such death has to go through. The government - hey it’s great being able to fix the judicial process in your own interest isn’t it - ruled that the Hutton inquiry was the inquest.
So there was no separate examination of the caused of the death where witnesses could be cross-examined under oath.
The fact the Labour and lackeys like you have been so keen to keep this under wraps adds to the suspicions of people like me.
Iraq/Kelly was a stain on your party that will never go away.
re 133. I seem to recall that you were delirious over that as well Roger. As it happens I agree with you - that was a brilliant ad and would have helped if Brown had not bottled it in October 2007.
He did and the rest as they say is history.
O/T was just listening to Meredith Kerchner’s brother explaining very carefully that while family were satisfied with verdict they could not be “happy” about it, not only had they suffered a terrible loss but “two young people” had been imprisoned for a long time. While he used the word “Happy” the tone and explanation was clear that it wasn’t what the family felt. Painful and touching explanation of the mixed feelings of a murder victim’s family after the verdict.
Radio 5 News just after that blithely states that Kerchner’s brothers at a press conference said they were happy with the verdict.
aaargh!
128. And of course Labour are making the same errors today, hence that crushing focus group finding about them being the party of single mothers and immigrants.
Re. the 70s - I think it was a great time to be a child or an adolescent, especially in the countryside; there was a degree of freedom then we will never have again.
It was a pretty dreadful time to be an adult, especially a patriotic one.
*WARNING* This thread has been infected with Scots!!! *WARNING*
136 - Norman Baker and Dr David Halpin will continue their campaign whatever happens.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/kelly-family-appeals-for-calm-after-new-murder-claims-by-mp-397445.html
The family of David Kelly, the government weapons expert, last night appealed for him to be allowed to rest in peace as an MP claimed that he was assassinated to stop him revealing more details about the “lies” that took Britain to war in Iraq.
Hasn’t Campbell being working for Labour officially for the past couple of years anyway?
I’m sure all those highly paid journalists will love the new tax they have to pay…
Mike. If Kelly was murdered who exactly do you think might have done it?
Mail goes big on Mr&Mrs Bercow.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1233312/Reckless-drinking-sprees-casual-sex—ELSE-Sally-Bercow-got-hide.html
By the time of the GE, they’ll be as popular as Hyndley and Brady.
143. Roger - did you follow the advice of your favourite bank?
‘BarCap told customers ‘buy Dubai’ just before crisis’
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6945259.ece
Tag-team -tim is a little late for duty today. Did the standby reserve have to be woken up?
re 143. I’ve no idea. The first thing is to have a proper inquest which Labour seems so desperate to avoid.
Why do you think that is Roger. Is there some murky truth that could come out?
Iraq was Labour’s signature policy supported, to their great shame, by the Tories and, more particularly, by your Mr. Brown.
143 - Of course Dr. Kelly committed suicide, but it was Campbell and the rest of repellent No.10 cesspit, with the full complicity and knowledge of Blair, that forced that honourable and courageous man to tragically take his own life. And tim is still their slavish cheerleader. Ugh.
140. Scarface. And all the better for it as well.
If there is nothing to hide about the Kelly death why all the effort to stop a proper inquest and investigation?
143.
Campbell & Mandy
55 That wins my Bitch of the Week award
121. / 130. That reminds me of something which one of my communist friends wrote to me a while ago, which helps to put things in perspective:
“I read a report in one of the Sundays of a defector from North Korea who ended up working in South Korea. He commented that although he was materially better off, he was spiritually deprived in South Korea. In North Korea, he said, he had had a life, comradeship with his fellow workers, and a purpose. In South Korea, he did nothing but work as an appendage of a machine, with virtually no time at all for leisure, let alone self improvement. … I have been 3 times to North Korea, all of the visits being during the times of hardship, and I can attest to the fact that (a) things are not even nearly as bad as imperialist sources make them out to be, and (b) that morale among people is high. Nearly everybody is proud that they are able to stand up to US bullying, whatever it takes.”
There may be a lot of things wrong with Marxism in practice and/or in theory; but materialism is not everything, and it is not wise to look at the whole world through western-oriented rose-tinted glasses. I believe that there are reasons why the DPRK survived after 1989 when the Eastern European “people’s democracies” didn’t, which go beyond simplistic denunciations of the régime as being a “military dictatorship” or whatever.
52 - It was repeating (as have the other papers) a report in yesterday’s Evening Standard. So if reading an Evening Standard story counts as digging up, the Times have it in for Bercow…
143. Foxy Knoxy? Leslie Grantham? Jeremy Bamber? Jack the Ripper?
150 - Actually I’ve thought for a while that people like Mohammed Al Fayed and Norman Baker should be given their day in court.
The persistence of conspiracy theories surrounding deaths like Kelly’s and Princess Dianas are best exposed as soon as possible.
I realise that Kellys family are do not question the cause of his death and do not want the affair reopened, but as was seen by the behaviour of the Express over Diana and Baker & Co over Kelly it may be in everyones interests to get them to back up their claims.
We can then move on and give those who believe 7/7 was an inside job the attention they seek and deserve too.
(OT) By the way, are there any betting odds for Croydon Central? The Croydon Advertiser this week is strongly hinting that Andrew Pelling MP is likely to stand for re-election as an independent candidate, and that he believes that Gavin Barwell (the Conservative PPC) would not be able to win were he to do so.
Andrew Pelling is very popular as an MP, but it is not clear how much his potential for winning has been hyped up by the letters page of the local newspapers. We can’t rule out the possibility that the Conservative vote might be split right down the middle (or that several thousands of votes would be split by Pelling and Barwell from each other) and that Labour may gain the seat.
My own guess is that Pelling won’t be a candidate, but that’s only a guess.
Where does this leave the Hutton Report ?
The truth is out
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233330/Dr-David-Kelly-Six-doctors-demand-inquest-death-weapons-expert-prove-murdered.html
re 156. Smearing again Tim. To put Mohammed Al Fayed and Norman Baker MP on the same level is disgusting.
All this is because of the way that Labour tried to manage “due process” and not let proper proceedings to take place.
Somebody is shit scared of what could come out.
104: Yes, I see what you mean about the blog, Mike - the frames in that blog are a real nuisance.
Interesting nostalgia points on the thread. I was abroad in the 70s so I can’t judge, but my impression is that most people feel that life has got much better from the viewpoint of consumers (more choice, better food, vastly better technology, more internationalism, better travel) but that there’s been a price in terms of rampant commercialism and the sense that everyone is ripping everyone else off as much as they can.
British Rail is a good example of both points. On the one hand, the nationalised system was creaky, loss-making and often uncomfortable and slow: technological advance has improved the speed and the commercial operators have improved the comfort. But it’s replaced a more or less accountable service which people thought of as ‘ours’ with a bunch of regional monopolies that quite clearly are bent on providing the minimum required service at the maximum profit. I think there would be votes in restoring the national system, not just from the left but from many who are instinctively on the right but feel we’ve lost more than we’ve gained by the change.
69 - I’m not sure if Sighthill has ever been described as lush or affluent Stuart.! In all seriousness I think Edinburgh SW is quite a difficult one. There are some good areas for the Tories but there are also some very strong Labour areas. It’s certainly not as good for us as the old Pentlands seat.
Sky now reporting on the David Kelly story….
156 The difference between Diana & Kelly is that the former has been extensively investigated, had a full inquest in addition to two police investigations carried out by two different national police forces and the latter was covered in brief in a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death rather than an inquest into the death.
The fear of an inquest raises questions, looks like there is something to hide. Most probably it was just Blair Government wanting to “move on” and try to close off any further publicity about a shameful episode but we haven’t had a proper investigation into his death on the politics surrounding it.
159. Ah..’due process’..a rather quaint notion in these New Labour times.
113. Sean Fear
“The Conservatives’ danger is to be seen as representing the rich (all polls show that). Labour’s danger is to be seen as representing the very poor and minority groups (polls show that).
At present, peoples’ perceptions of Labour are worse than their perceptions of the Conservatives.”
In other words groups that swing voters - white working class and lower middle class - dislike.
For the Conservatives posh daddy’s boy chinless wonders (this is why Osborne is a Conservative problem ditto Grieve, Lansley etc). The more beer swilling rugby playing army officer variety of posh is looked upon rather fondly, hence the popularity of Boris.
Traditionally City yuppies and bankers would have been a Conservative problem too but these groups are now associated also with Labour.
For Labour - ethnics, immigrants, underclass layabouts, chavscum, council/union jobsworths.
Now which group does the average swing voter come into contact with most?
Tory “piss-up, brewery” update
Exactly a week ago, Hammersmith and Fulham leader Stephen Greenhalgh declared that some in the Shadow Cabinet “haven’t run a piss up in a brewery”.
That particular description may well be applied to David Cameron and George Osborne’s pre-Christmas drinks for leading businessmen in the Commons this week.
The pair used their Portcullis House lair to stage the event on Monday night, but several guests were kept waiting upto 45 minutes outside the building. One FTSE 100 chairman took one look at the queue outside and promptly got back into his chauffeur-driven car. “I hope they run a country a lot better than they run a drinks party,” one guest said.
It is claimed by someone present that the Conservatives had failed to inform security of their party and so guests had to wait in line.
I know that there were big queues outside Portcullis that night partly because Speaker Bercow was delivering his big speech in the building. Still, it’s clear that at least some of the guests were not best pleased by the delay.
One other point, I’m told that the reception was definitely not a fundraiser. Of course, the party has been rapped over the knuckles before for using Parliament to host dining club events for donors.
157. Tory independents have a very poor track record. I doubt he’d get more than a few hundred votes…
129: MalcolmG @ 10:12
I think you have something about life in the 70s compared to now - especially your earlier point about attitudes to work and society.
For all the problems that there were at the time, and the improvements since (e.g. advances in medical science means that people now survive diseases that would have been fatal thirty years ago), I think we are a much more unhappy people now than we were then.
We may be looking back with rose-tinted spectacles and a danger that we could be descending into the realms of the Four Yorkshiremen. However, your posts win my vote for the most thought provoking on PB for the week. Thank you.
160. Some are of the view that the inconveniences in public transport - delays, cancellations, diversions, rude staff, overcrowding - are just part of the general friction of going through life, which one just has to tolerate as an unavoidable fact of life. Things like power cuts and waiting lists for getting telephones in the 1970s would be perhaps of the same ilk.
164.159. Ah..’due process’..a rather quaint notion in these New Labour times.
by runnymede December 5th, 2009 at 11:12 am
‘due diligence’ is something else as well
168. I think there is a rose-tinted view creeping in here, for sure. You need to remember the bitter social divisions there were in the 1970s. It was definitely not a society ‘at ease with itself’.
166.
No doubt that Gordon Brown will latch onto that event and describe it as “yet another right old Eton mess”
Who said he wanted to put an end to punch and judy politics?
160 Life was always better “then” - we were younger then, summers were always warmer then (ah 1976), we expected great things ahead.
70’s were dire. British Rail along with all nationalised companies had capital investment cut from 1974 onwards, stagflation and energy crises, shortages (remember complaints of sugar hoarding, bread hoarding etc), regular power cuts and other utility strikes. Britain was the Sick Man of Europe, in barely managed decline.
But if you were young, it’s disco or punk, he Jubilee, summer of 76, probably first package holiday in Spain.
148 - Very true John.
I also found this a fairly repellant part of the whole affair.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/may/23/labour.uk
try francis wheen’s ’strange times indeed’ for a fantastic portrait of the 70s in all its awfulness
The 70’s is fondly remembered probably because the TV and the music were far superior to modern offerings, it was probably also the last time that people could say and do what they want before the onset of political correctness. However people are remembering the fun bits and forgetting that day to day life was a hard grind. Life On Mars showed this very well, Sam Tyler was living in a horrible one room flat, the TV only showed the testcard most of the time and there was a general air of stagnation and decay.
I’m the same when I think back to my days at uni in the mid 1990’s. I love to remember things like my friends, nights put and other “nocturnal activities!” But it also involved a diet mostly of beans and Smash and for a lot of the time I had about £20 to last me all week!
tim - Any thoughts about your super-hero’s developing career as a world statesman luminary in “opening methanol plants”?
http://tinyurl.com/yhmnteo
162 What are sky reporting about Kelly SVP
I thought it was fun in September 1976 when I was watching out of the classroom window at the huge thunderstorm which was raging outside, putting an end to the long drought. (I was 8.)
I’m going to have to re-read some of the thread to work out why we are all talking about 1970s nostalgia.
174 - Hi Max - Yes, you do well to remind us of this utterly squalid mob.
176. it was probably also the last time that people could say and do what they want before the onset of political correctness.
It probably wasn’t all great fun for the people who were scared of being queer-bashed, openly racially abused, discriminated against in employment or housing, and so on.
179 That day I drove my two sisters back to their boarding school in North Devon, thunder, lightening, skiddy roads. Arrived in Bideford and people were filling buckets at the standpipes in the rain. It was a fortnight or so IIRC before the restrictions there were lifted and water turned back on.
Re the OP - no.
Mandelson and Campbell are both stupid, inept and dishonest. They appeared successful in the 1990s only by lying - on an unprecedented scale, and with unequalled viciousness.
It worked because at the time, enough swing voters couldn’t believe a major party could possibly be that dishonest. It all had to be true.
Didn’t it?
Now, those people have finally cottoned on.
There’s always a price to pay for this and Labour is now paying it. For a short-term advantage, lying loses you your credibility indefinitely. Any three-year-old with chocolate round their mouth, who lies about stealing from the biscuit tin, knows this.
Labour did not. Labour is less morally competent than a three-year-old child. And a lot more vicious.
111. That is beautiful.
I have just done a bit of googling to investigate why this job should have been entrusted to Norwich Poly and not, say, Cambridge. Cambridge claims to have 84 Nobel prizes and UEA, errrrm, none, nul, not any, fewer than one.
This disturbed me. However, I re-ran the data using Mike’s Nature trick and it turns out UEA has 107. Thank goodness for that!
20. Another fascinating and perceptive post on Scottish voting intentions from Stuart Dickson.
Has anyone else seen this massive gamechanger?
http://www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/news/4775088.We_re_recycling_champions_/
RECYCLING champions in Old Trafford and Gorse Hill have embraced the council’s kerbside collection service.
In the first full four-weekly cycle of the service operating in the area, 38 tonnes of glass, cans and plastic bottles and 55 tonnes of paper and card have been collected.
That’s a total of 93 tonnes – the same weight as 93 classic Mini Coopers This compares with an average of 60 tonnes per month collected under the previous service, which used a box and bag for collection of materials.
You English PBers just don’t get it about Gorse Hill, I’m afraid. This is HUGE!
184 Classic! LOL!
173
Not true for British Gas it was a time of great expansion, the building of the National Grid and the conversion from Towns Gas to Natural Gas of every consumer in the country, the biggest single engineering feat, since the railways.
The shortages, were caused by consumer panic, (there was even a run on toilet paper) they were not genuine shortages and didn’t last for long.
Fashion was crap though.
HurstLlama The 70s were grey and most colours were browned out, a time of enormous inflation, where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. There was a blackmarket in everything even Landrovers of all things, where those with cash bought forward at one price and sold at an enormous profit when the badly made things were delivered a year later and six months late.
Spivs thrived, the biggest part of the economy was the black side.
You might get permission to take ten quid abroad with you if you could afford the fare in the first place.
Drug dealers got in their stride and fags and beer became almost inaccessible for the low paid. And the beer was watery crap, like RedBarrel.
Most things were of terrible quality, even Japanese cars. British cars were a joke. Clothes were either extravagantly expensive or cheap and low quality. The marketing plan for most companies was ‘forget the quality as they ain’t got no choice’.
A phone at home: a luxury. And you had to get past bossy Post Office staff even to pay the deposit demanded six weeks in advance of installation, which was always very, very late, done badly and the phone line put in the wrong place in the house.
And if you complained you were threatened with blacklisting by the union.
The unions called the shots and shot the economic fox.
In short the nanny incompetent state controlled almost everything and the people suffered for it while the rich emigrated to avoid the 95percent tax rate.
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet
Taxman!
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
Don’t ask me what I want it for (Aahh Mr. Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more (Aahh Mr. Heath)
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me
Taxman!
168 Hurstllama, Thank you very much for your comments, I do really believe we have lost a lot of the good values in life over the last 30-40 years, the drive for more and more money has made Britain a much poorer country in every sense.
181. Which proves the point that the 70’s wasn’t a mythical golden age!
173: Ted @ 11:22
Yes, I remember all that stuff and more. I remember being on leave in Portugal and my Portguese hosts thinking I was mad to go back to a country where the electricity was only on for three days a week, PIRA had bombed parliament and on my return I was due to go to County Armargh for six months.
I also remember the train from Brighton to Victoria took fifty minutes, it was faster then than now. That a glass of beer didn’t cost half an hour’s wages for an ordinary working man. That, providing it wasn’t slanderous, one could express ones views openly. That council jobsworths couldn’t come into my home anytime they felt like it. That fines were something handed down by courts after you had been convicted following due process not imposed by some clerk. That the Old Bill tried to catch villains and keep the streets safe. That it was inconcievable that the Prime Minister would wilfully mislead parliament in order to take the country into a war it didn’t need to fight. I remember a lot, lot more.
As for being in barely managed decline, where do you think we are today? At least my father never felt it necessary to tell me to prepare to emigrate, which is what I have had to do for my son.
No, life in the 70s wasn’t a bed of roses, but I am not convinced it was any worse than we have today and in many respects it was a lot better.
If the death of Kelly was not suicide as his family insist, then it certainly behoves us to look for the killers.
It seems to me that the most likely bunch are the Liberal Democrats and their shady associates.
After all *cui bono ?* and they do have plenty of ‘previous’.
183. Dishonesty in politics who would have thought it? Certainly not those delightful Tories who could never have been voted out in 1997 because of their lies, sleeze and ineptitude on a variety of key issues.
I look forward to welcoming you to the real world one day. A world where politicians lie, cheat and deceive the electorate in order to achieve their ultimate objective of acquiring power.
The Tories managed 18 years in power following this unique strategy. And now Labour have managed 12 years. Yes people cotton on in the end and then naively believe the next lot of incompetents will be different (Cameron and Osbourne HA!).
Neither 12 or 18 years of power can be argued as gaining a short-term advantage.
188
Written in 1966 during the, ‘Singing Sixties’
On Revolver wasn’t it?
181. John, you are correct , it was not perfect , however the difference now it is the police and the authorities that do the abusing, different groups and different methods but just as bad.
Nowadays you just need to have lots of money.
188. Wasn’t inequality in Britain lower in the late 1970s than at any other point in the twentieth century or since?
On the telephone line point: I’ve just waited two months for BT to reconnect a phone line, then another fortnight for O2 to connect me to their broadband service. Can’t believe the old Post Office / Telecom would have been any worse.
How does this…
BBC 21.08.2003:
“Dr David Kelly told a UK diplomat he would probably be “found dead in the woods” if the UK invaded Iraq, the Hutton inquiry has heard.
David Broucher, the UK’s permanent representative on the disarmament conference in Geneva, said the scientist made what at the time he regarded as a “throwaway remark” in February [2003].”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3170593.stm
…turn into these:
Telegraph 05.12.2009:
“In a phone conversation after he was outed as the source Dr Kelly said he wouldn’t be surprised “if my body was found in the woods”.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6732234/Doctors-demand-inquest-to-prove-Dr-David-Kelly-was-murdered.html
Mail 05.12.2009:
“In one final phone conversation, he told a caller he wouldn’t be surprised ‘if my body was found in the woods’.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233330/Dr-David-Kelly-Six-doctors-demand-inquest-death-weapons-expert-prove-murdered.html
An interesting leader article in The Times today -
‘The many versus the few. Dividing people from one another is a poor way to rule’
‘The nation deserves more than a government with both eyes already set on the general election.’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6945277.ece
144 - could be worse, they could be as popular as Brown!
Just been catching up on the older threads. Re Dave and the troops reaction as reported by gabble.
Did the troops find the need to humiliate Dave in the same way as they did Gordon when they got him to sign a vehicle and then revealed that they had named the vehicle Cyclops?
Don’t remember anything like that happening to Dave, but I am sure gabble will put me right and show me an example.
197 Mention ‘Kelly’, and as if by magic Gabble appears. Something’s clearly up.
180. JohnO. Indeed he does but don’t you think there is something a tiny bit ironic about Stewart Jackson of all people describing it as ‘a monumental lack of judgement’?
192 - URW, here is the website of the Doctor co ordinating the Kelly Campaign.
Enjoy
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/
164 - Who needs due process, Labour prefers the court of public opinion.
Well, they did, when it suited them……
188. Witan, what cobblers , anybody could afford beer in the 70’s, I had little money and a young family but could always manage a drink. I remember nasty curmudgeons like you complaining after we had installed their phone perfectly, no offer of a cup of tea or ten bob for a beer, even with the free extension.
200 - Don’t forget TimBot and NPMP, all involved in “Wristband Gate”.
202 - Yeah Roger, because that’s the important part.
HurstLllama
But those trains were only faster when they ran in those brief periods when some rail union or other weren’t on sttrike or a go slow or ‘work to rule’.
That beer may have been cheap for you but for some of my folk working in factories it was becoming a once a week luxury, the police were too far in the opposite direction of the PC extreme they often are now - and I had real tussles with them - the influence of left wing nutters was bringing many of the educational institutions to their knees and in manufacturing managers were giving up and letting the business go down while demanding subsidies.
British Leyland was a foretaste of the Brownian philosophy of today.
But most of all I remember the repressive culture, the blackmail of the consumer caused by the economic mess we were in. Be nice or you won’t get. And when you get it don’t complain, or else you will never get again.
On topic: It looks likely to me that Alistair Campbell’s return to the band will turn out like Mandy’s: at best a short-term improvement in presentation and a few good one-liners (remember ‘No time for a novice?’), but not making much difference in the end. Indeed, there are indications that, unlike Mandy, Campbell’s extremely partisan and nasty obsession with Tory-hatred, bordering on the pathological, will reinforce Brown’s existing tendency in the same direction.
This time Labour don’t have Blair in charge, to veto the worst excesses and put a superficially pleasant gloss on the less extreme smears.
As for how the Tories should react to Labour’s increasingly vicious and personalised attempts to distract attention from their own record, Matthew Parris is spot-on in The Times:
Accurately or otherwise, meanwhile, Mr Cameron is thought of as personally agreeable, kind and courteous; and very, very calm.
He must play to this. Nothing would be more counter-productive than to react to class-based attacks by ditching policies, or by going pink in the face and shouting ad hominems (in an upper-class accent) back.
Confidence, steady rationality and the good manners that can come with both should be what we take from the Tory performance this winter.
205.
This was ‘king priceless: I remember nasty curmudgeons like you complaining after we had installed their phone perfectly, no offer of a cup of tea or ten bob for a beer, even with the free extension.
LOL!! Just think malcolm. If Labour had stayed in power since then, that same family might just about be taking delivery of their Yugo 55 about now. Oh no, hang on, we’d still be subsidising our own state manufacturer of second hand cars, wouldn’t we? Make yours an Allegro - the car designed by the council.
How ungrateful of those people not to fawn over the kindly state-controlled producer, i.e. you, who only made them wait six months for a phone! Don’t they realise you were entitled to some gratitude, as well as the money they were taxed to give you for grudgingly doing your shameful non-job?
You must walk past the T-Mobile shop on the way and think, Bastards!
Coldstone the disaster of the 70s did not suddenly pop into existence. It began with the ‘post war consensus’ but particularly was nurtured by Wilson and crew in the 60’s, helped along by a statist Heath and came to full fruition when Wilson became PM again.
‘Taxman’ was simply a reflection of a situation which continued and created the disaster Thatcher had to clear up. That is why it refers to Heath and Wilson. They both were happily tripping down the road to disaster.
188: Witan @ 11:49
“fags and beer became almost inaccessible for the low paid. And the beer was watery crap, like RedBarrel”
In 1974 a pint of Youngs Special (a proper cask-conditioned beer, brewed in Wandsworth with an OG of 1048) cost 19p in a saloon bar in central London. Twenty cigarettes cost 21p. A private soldier in the army cleared £18 per week after taxes and charges for food and accommodation.
I know I might be looking through rose-tinted spectacles, but I fear you are doing the reverse.
Be that as it may, MalcolmG’s point repeated at 189 (11:52) is for me the real issue, not the materialist side.
Tweet from Mr Macrory of Conservative ramping fame
“Sunday Telegraph one of two papers with polls tonight. Expect Conservatives to be back in overall majority territory.”
That could mean absolutely anything! I note, however, he did not tweet about the previous polls. Maybe these put the Tories in a better position?
Speaking as a representative of modern yoof, the 70s sounds shite. I’d rather be alive today than at any other point in the whole span of human history.
And I LIKE history.
Oh dear… shaping up to be anoher bad day for our class warriors
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233353/Blair-Bush-orchestrated-obsessed-witch-hunt-Saddam.html
“Bush and Blair misled the public… yes, it’s conceivable both could end up on trial’”
“Mr Blix accused Mr Blair of ‘legal tap-dancing’ by claiming that existing UN resolutions gave the green light for war.
He added: ‘The war, in my view, was illegal, yes. The British knew the evidence [of weapons] was thin, and they should have remembered that before they started shooting.’
Asked whether Mr Blair could be tried for war crimes, Mr Blix said: ‘Well, yes, maybe so. Well, we’ll see. It’s not very likely to happen.’
Mr Blix said he would have been happy to testify to the Chilcot inquiry into the war but had not been asked to attend.
The inquiry heard yesterday that British troops were deliberately put in greater danger in order to increase Mr Blair’s influence with the Americans.”
And tucked away….
“The chances of Gordon Brown being called to give evidence increased yesterday when the inquiry heard he had refused to release additional funds to rebuild Basra following the invasion.”
210. John R , you are cruel, I was just a young man trying to make my way in the world, I did see sense and leave the PO very quickly however. Allegro’s were cute in their day , but have not aged well. Have to say mobiles are a curse as well as useful. In my days as an engineer it was more relaxed , looking for a phone box to call in for work, nowadays with mobiles and GPS trackers etc it would be a nightmare. Luckily i am beyond all that and work from home and can suit myself.
just as Alastair Campbell steps back in our minds are taken back by the Kelly non suicide claim to the last time he was near the seat of power and his PR skills in the run up to the Iraq war.
By the 1970s, discredited brands like Red Barrel and Flowers Keg had been totally discredited.
By contrast, brands like the Liberals with their catchy new slogan “Vote Liberal or we’ll shoot your dog ” were on the rise again.
Witan 188
You are either too young to know or too old to remember!
Sorry, laddie (or lassie), but all that you refer to happened in the dreary 50s NOT the 70s. I’m old enough to remember all the things you so eloquently wrote about and they took place in that post-war period which had even more shortages than during the actual war.
152 Thanks.
I forgot to add, that he was pretty scrofulous, in those days, too.
214. Andrew, your post proves our point , you do not even realise that the country is cr*p and a shadow of its former self. I will excuse you given the educational standards today. Despite its problems, life in general in 70’s Britain was better than the rat race we have today. Sadly Britain chose to go the way of the US instead of Europe. Show me any Western European country that has lost their way of life as much as Britain, they have made improvements but kept at least a share of their old values and ways of life. You have a lot of learning about life to do yet.
Perhaps the Chilcot inquiry will be widened to cover Dr Kelly?
The central concerns that I have regarding the death of Dr Kelly are set out here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2004/jan/27/guardianletters4
These are precise medical concerns about the suicide which, so far as I am aware, have never been addressed. The only, very revealing, response that I have seen to this letter is to suggest that its chief author is tainted because of his views. For some reason, those throwing that accusation around don’t seem to realise that the points in this letter still need addressing.
I have no theories as to what happened - this death may indeed have been a suicide. But we need an inquest to establish this. It is extraordinary that the most controversial death in the UK this century has never been investigated in an inquest.
218 - I wasn’t around in the 70’s but my dad told me that the beer was particularly bad. Thankfully we now have Stella!
ICM poll (for the ST tonight) and it sounds like the Tories are doing OK.
http://twitter.com/henrymacrory
139 I loved the Seventies, as a child. The strikes, terrorism, and economic decline passed me by, and my father was making a fortune, as life was far easier for high street solicitors than it is today.
I doubt if I’d have enjoyed it much, as a politically conscious adult, though.
But the absence of petty controls (outside the economic sphere) and the ability to speak one’s mind certainly provide a welcome contrast with today.
Try the products of *Meantime* Brewery.They are a large micro-brewery based in Greenwich and you can sample their products via ‘Taste the Difference’ at Sainsbury’s.
221. You sound like every generation of middle aged men since the fall of Rome. The sentiment that this country has gone to the dogs has always been the rallying cry of every nostalgic old reactionary.
I prefer optimism. The fact that we’re even having this conversation speaks to a level of technological advancement and scientific potential that I wouldn’t trade for any number of cheerful urchins huddled round the coal fire, waiting for Dad to come home in his Ford Cortina.
re 223. That is the standard response from Labour. If somebody raises questions you don’t bother to answer - you smear the questioner.
Tim’s appalling approach on this thread is a classic. I raise it and am accused of being a loony conspiracy theorist. Norman Lamb MP spends more than a year investigating what happens and he’s just smeared.
It all goes back to the reason I left the Labour party in the early 1980s - the widespread view that it had a superior moral purpose and therefore anything was justifiable in pursuit of that purpose.
229 OGH.I stand four-square behind tim. You are a loony conspiracy theorist in this case.
That is just my view and that of the family of Dr.Kelly.
229 Perhaps I’m being naive, but I don’t think that members of even this government would resort to murder, though.
Heads up, bettists.
RT @TimMontgomerie: Tory press supremo @HenryMacrory is hinting that there are two good opinion polls for the Conservatives tonight
“I prefer optimism.”
Hear, hear!
Anyway, we have, in UKIP, our very own party for the this country’s gone to the dogs’ types!
223 - Antifrank, I think it was you I had this conversation with a while ago, and I pointed you to the evidence on Co Proxamol and suicide.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7397/1006
229 - It was Norman Baker not Lamb, and his suggestions in his book that Kelly’s wife may be involved in a cover up are the smear you should be concerned about.
DR KELLY!!!!!!!!!!!,
now I have your attention gabble, any further forward on an example of the troops humiliating Dave?
What is the explantion from Tim and friends at the lack of blood at the scene when the cause of death was supposed to be blood loss due to Dr Kelly cutting his wrists?
229 Mike S, see also tim’s post at 203 as an example of a smear with a ‘religious twist’, used to encourage or incite other posters to support his warped opinion.
Spot on as usual,EdP. Let’s ban the Jews from pb.com. YOU know it makes sense.
Keep trying. You are not without a chance.
Daily Mail also make sure their readership hears about Bernanke’s thoughts on Gordo’s economic genius
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233376/U-S-Federal-Reserve-chief-blames-Brown-Britains-economic-woes.html
And from the same story
Meanwhile, Alistair Darling will risk a City backlash next week as he defers painful measures to rein in our leviathan national debt.
The Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report on Wednesday will warn of draconian spending cuts for some government departments, while insisting that frontline services such as health and education will be protected.
So much for “no cuts”
Another Lie, it seems to be a recurring theme.
238 URW, but for my father marrying a gentile, I would be a jew. What’s your point?
Oh Christ. URW’s doing his self-pitying whining thing again.
Can somebody ping me when he falls asleep?
Oh dear
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=468531
This guy has form doesn’t he
232. The way I read his tweet he seemed to be referring to the ST poll only, any ideas who the other poll could be?
On Dr Kelly, I think it was suicide. He was hung out to dry by No. 10 and he seemed to visibly deflate in that Select Committee meeting when Andrew Mackinlay scornfully referred to him as “chaff” but I don’t think it was murder.
The problem with most conspiracy theories, Diana, moon landings etc. is that in order to work they need governments to be highly efficient and ruthless organizations that are able to fake a moonlanding or commit 9/11 but manage the leave a trail of evidence a mile long! Professional debunkers refer to this as “selective omnipotence” I work for government and I know only too well that government doesn’t have anything like the degree of competence to pull these things off. It usually comes down to Occam’s Razor, “the simplest explanation is usually the correct one!”
240 EdP.My point is simple. More than half of your posts on here are devoted to attacking tim.
He is worth fifty of the likes of you but you insist on highlighting the philo-semitic nature of some of his posts.
Sounds like you are ashamed of your ancestry.
Any road up. I think you are a total mediocrity and it disturbs me to think you are allowed to be a *maven* on films.
I just can’t believe anyone as shallow as you could carry any weight anywhere.
Just my opinion mind !
Interesting twitter comment by a Daily Mirror journo:
“I just generated a #TweetCloud out of a year of my tweets. Top three words: cameron, tories, tory”
Further proof that the Mirror is a pathetic Labour attack rag that spends all it’s time slagging off cameron, tories and tory without anything positive about Labour. All those Labourites complaining about the Sun should look in the Mirror, so to speak.
When the Mirror sent a journo to root through DC’s bins they made a front page story out of the fact that he used disposable nappies for his disabled child and called him a hypocrite. It’s funny, but now that it has been revealed that Ed Milliband does the same I don’t recall them kicking up such a fuss over him.
@243:
Exactly. The truth is that most governments could not cover up a fart. Believing in them requires have a completely misplaced idea of the average level of competence of government employees.
238/244. URW.
WTF????
245 - You would think that they would group Tories and Tory as the same word, as one is just the plural of the other. Oh well it is the Mirror I suppose. I would guess #4 on there list would be Toff.
You know that Tony Blair bloke that Labour thought would be a brilliant EU president (but not good enough to be PM any longer)?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/azerbaijan/6728429/Tony-Blair-funded-by-obscure-oligarch.html
“ony Blair’s new paymaster is an obscure oligarch with business links to Syria, Iran and Afghanistan, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.”
“The disclosure comes amid growing scrutiny of Mr Blair’s network of private backers, with the Kuwaiti government understood to be one of his biggest financial supporters.
The former prime minister has earned an estimated £14 million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007. He no longer has to disclose the sources of his income.”
@247:
URW has a peculiar psychosis that requires him to come on here once a week and accuse everyone except tim of hating Jews.
Re MPs, conspiracy theories and Government cover ups, perhaps the most instructive case is that of Tam Dalyell who spent twenty years constructing theories in this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell
234 So let the evidence be tested in an Inquest. Issues about the narrative and cause of death presented to and accepted by Hutton have never been properly examined, as Mike says the immediate response is to smear.
Blair, Campbell and others involved in the outing of Dr Kelly were doing it to distract from the truth, that the “evidence” presented was indeed flimsy but that its presentation was hiding the weakness of the case. Response was to make the story about Kelly & the BBC not the real scandal. It resulted in a man’s death, probably suicide, but we never saw that properly investigated because again the story was on proving Blair and Co hadn’t “sexed up” the evidence.
Lets get the issue settled.
244 ‘Sounds like you are ashamed of your ancestry.’
URW, where have I ever suggested that? Are you reduced to pure invention now?
Isn’t it time for your regular lunchtime drinky and a nice game of online poker to wind down?
250 one might almost call them… a herd
247.You need to be a trifle more articulate to elicit a response from me.
I know you are numerate but maybe you struggle to be articulate.
Could be you are looking for support from others…..a typical resort of inadequates.
Has URW been on the source early doors again?
188. “The 70s were grey”.
No they weren’t - they were brown and orange.
I was very young during the 1970s so have little memory of them except power cuts but I get the impression that while many of the practical things in life were nothing like as good as they are now, some of the more intangibles aren’t.
**** BETTING POST ****
The same stable who provide the tips for the excellent “STJOHN 2010″ betting service feel that they have identified some major value in the World Cup.
Brazil to win at 11/2. Stonking value. Available with Ladbrokes, Bet365 and Boylesports.
I’m on!
Labour..useless, inept, wasteful, liars.
Brown…useless, inept, wasteful, liar.
Mandelson,useless,scheming,sacked in disgrace twice, liar.
Campbell, useless, smearer,dodgy dossier, Dr Kelly’s death, channel four gatecrash,liar.
Britain under these..wrecked.
British public..tired of liars,Brown, Mandelson, Campbell,Labour.
The reunion of these,the final nail.
Bring it on losers.
Another wrong move by Brown. He will think he can regurgitate the New Labour project despite the fact the whole country knows he is a liar, a crap PM and so inept he is a joke.Oh and was a useless,lying gobshite as chancellor.
255 Probably. Read the Atherton book, for an idea of his alternative lifestyle.
250 Martin Coxall. You are dead right ! Once a week and always on Saturday afternoons. It used to be exactly the same on Betfair Politics.
@257:
Dear Leader has already announced the the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has won.
Imperialist scum.
246. Covering up a fart is very difficult. It is, however, very easy to cast doubt as to who the culprit is.
254. URW: You need to be a trifle more articulate to elicit a response from me.
Apparently not.
254 ‘Could be you are looking for support from others…..a typical resort of inadequates.’
Which is exactly what tim did, with his dog whistling post at 203. It certainly caught your attention didn’t it? But then, he knew it would.
@262:
He who denied it, supplied it, surely?
263. LS.Well at least that was an attempt at wit and well done !
I can always be diverted by wit. So hard to find these days.
265, That was certainly Andrew Gilligans take on the whole issue.
256 The 1970’s were chocolate brown, avocado, purple and orange - sometimes all in the same wallpaper….
264. EdP.
You get a “WTF” too.
Dog whistle? He posted a link!
264 EdP. tim doesn’t need my support and at times it could seem like an embarrassment to him.
However from time to time I attempt to communicate *solely* with tim and now and again he reciprocates.
Did it escape your shallow and limited notice that we disagreed re PMQs where Cameron made his Pathfinder gaffe ?
Whatever else I may be I am not a robot and you will never predict my response.
264 - People who construct conspiracy theories rarely stop at one.
Look at Dalyell, or Bakers UFO thing.
221: AndrewG @ 12:40
“You sound like every generation of middle aged men since the fall of Rome. The sentiment that this country has gone to the dogs has always been the rallying cry of every nostalgic old reactionary.”
Well posted.
Yes, I expect we do, and I would think the generational attitude evidenced by your post goes back long before the fall of Rome. Michael Flanders used to do a wonderful sketch about the old boy watching the erection of Stonehenge (but then even by mentioning the late Mr. Flanders I am adding to my offence).
As for optimism, if MalcolmG and I, who are, I think, as far apart on the political spectrum as it is possible to get, can find common cause over attitudes to life and society there is hope for us yet.
Oh, and please don’t rubbish the Ford Cortina. My Mk V, 2 litre automatic was the nicest car I have ever owned. True, it didn’t always start, wasn’t terribly safe in the event of a crash and drank petrol like a stoker on shore leave in Aden drank beer, but reliability, saftey and economy (not to mention style) aren’t everything.
@270:
Entropy is a conspiracy to hide the truth of determinism from us. FACT.
He who deduced the smear produced the smear.
Case in point being Mike’s post @159 where he criticizes another poster for the use of a smear while circulating a vague conspiracy theory accusing someone in government of murdering a critic.
268 - And carpet up the sides of baths.
A friend of mine recently bought a house with a particularly grim example of damp brown chocolate carpet covered, bathroom nostalgia.
Some people think that Entropy is fictitious propaganda, along with the second law of thermodynamics in which it is mentioned. They see it as lies spread to hide the truth of determinism from us.
Nveertheless, ordinary pe ple usually beileve in Entr4py (when they know what the hell it is… or better to say, what kind of a hell it is). Theyworship it, they blame Entropy for every disorder in their lives. For example, if a tidy rOom turns messy, it’s not their fa:lt, it’s Entropy’s. Thye beiLeve EntWopy wEill sommmday ConTHume _he universe…
Well, if Errropy do:. e:ist, ;he oHly d+sörd3r :t ;s resfgnsdgle foe ss t¤e#e 0eobl0’s beb%#l dis”i£ ½rd3er .
274 Edmund in Tokyo….Wish you were here.
273, heard on Sky a little about this. Is it true there was no coroner overseeing the proceedings?
Kelly’s death is and was dodgy as hell. Labour’s best case scenario is that they leaked his name and he was then hounded so much he killed himself.
275. Getting post-modern on our arses.
275 -
276 MC. That sounds like Lovecaft on crack.
If Mr Campbell is back in the fold, where was he when Our Glorious Leader and Miliband Jnr decided to comprehensively insult anyone who disagreed with their views on AGW?
I’m still pinching myself - what are they thinking of?
Being rude about the BNP is one thing [which I also think is stupid personally], but he’s just maligned all those voters who have commented on every newpaper story and the BBC’s HYS.
Since when did being so offensive become okay? I thought being referred to as ‘a denier’ with all the Nazi overtones was bad enough, but ‘dangerous, deceitful, anti-science, flat-earthers and climate saboteur’
That’s a lot of name calling from the men leading the country.
275 – Someone appears to have hacked into your comment and transmogrified it.
It’s a conspiracy I tell ya…!
281, can we remove Plato’s post, please? I’m not sure the site should allow the ramblings of a saboteur, denier and heathen. Climate Change is Truth. Lowering Carbon Emissions is bringing Beauty to Truth. These Facts are self-evident. Only the most corrupted and perverse individuals cannot see this, poor souls whose minds are too small and simple to recognise obvious Truth.
….
Obviously a spoof, but reading it over I’d be unsurprised if a someone actually wrote something like that. See the video of Fraser Nelson versus Judas Iscariot (I may have got the name wrong) on Sky? (It’s on Coffee House and Iain Dale’s site).
When Macrory tweets a bout a poll is he likely to have been given the wink by someone on the ST - or is he likely to making his own deduction based on the fact that it is an ICM poll?
271 One thing better about the 70’s - as a 21 year old in mid 70’s I could drive a Triumph 2.5PI on my Dad’s insurance (any driver, remember that long gone coverage) with no increased premium or limitations.
re 284. Macrory has probably been told the figures
testing: I can smell URW. is he about?
284. Justin.
Macrory’s tweets about polls have a patchy record of accuracy, to say the least.
On topic, this thread is the perfect example of why Mandy and Campbell will have little positive and lots of negative impact. Within what seemed a matter of moments the thread descended into Kelly, smear and conspiracy theory territory.
That is the baggage those two carry and it will hurt Labour in the long run.
Mike on Buckingham did you see this blogpost…
http://donalblaney.blogspot.com/2009/12/bercow-they-wouldnt-would-they.html
Quite the wild theory there…
283 That very odd chappy [Bob Ward] gave me the creeps - he had that serial-killer mug shot look.
The AGW bunch need some much better spokespeople if they’re going to salvage any goodwill from this. I notice how much more jumpy Prf Watson is each time he’s grilled - the CRU are being thrown under a bus.
The damage to the university must be awful - the peeps on the courses there must be wondering what impact having UEA on their CV will be.
288 - It could be Labour and Tories both down, just Labour faster. It could be Tories static and Labour down. It could be Tories and Labour up but Tories faster. Who knows?
290, hehehe. Be fun if it happened. If so, the Tories would axe him from the Speakership.
291, as someone with a serial killer face I disagree with that. Ward is more like a drooling trenchcoat-wearer.
291 - Thats it, someone looks like a serial killer, I’m chucking away the science and joining the crusade.
Do we all have to do our hair like Piers Corbyn?
275, 280
It occurs to me that “John Bercow’s Sex Tips” sounds like something that Lovecraft would invent.
“And even after all these years, I cannot rid my mind of that image, almost too hideous to contemplate, of that grey, twisted, brittle, monstrosity lying naked on the bed.”
286. Who the whatsaname is Macrory? A new one on me, but that just sshows my ignorance.
297, he’s some Tory media chap who overeggs most polling puddings.
I see that Betfair have closed their Buckingham market voiding all bets. What a load of effing w**kers.
298. Thanks MD, anyway I’m more interested on the snooker today: Shaun Murphy playing.
300, gone off snooker a bit. Used to be moderately into it. Who’s Murphy playing?
299. I sent a £50 bet to Robert via Ptp last night; I bet he wishes he hadn’t mentioned Buckingham now.
298 - actually, he doesn’t tend to over egg them. He just ignores them when they’re not what the Tories want, which is a bit sloppy.
‘Back in majority territory’ could be anything from the 13/14 point leads we have consistently seen (or higher but that would have attracted more of a ramp I think) pre MORI-wobble to a similar to Comres but with hger Tory figs - 40/30/20 for example would give a small Tory majority on Baxter.
301. Some no hoper, someone caled Greene.
304 but for ICM to fit into the slight decline in lead and vote narrative a result of 40/28/20 or so would be about the ‘expectation’ on recent polls
305, think I remember Greene. Did well (for low rank) at the Crucible a few years ago. Otherwise anonymous, in my limited knowledge.
One of the things I like about F1 is that the odds are usually long, so you only need a moderate success rate to finish ahead.
Keeping a lazy eye on the driver’s market. Massa well down from the 16/1 high on Betfair (bobbing around the 10-12/1 mark), Rosberg’s gone up slightly (I went for 13/1 rather than holding out at 14/1). Hope testing proves illuminating.
Cameron’s speech on H&S madness being nicely proven accurate:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233380/Sell-sandwich-Sorry-choke-saystrain-steward.html
No doubt Gabble will be along shortly to say we all really like H&S and are just in denial.
299 OGH. I am just mildly shocked by your reaction. Betfair did absolutely the right thing in my view.
I abhor ambiguity and I have not got much brief for small-time crooks.
You are better than this,MS. You are badly in need of a reality check.
Real winners don’t need to cheat and I believe you are a real winner.
Sean Fear as a lawyer if someone is driven to their death on purpose but without direct physical action by the perpetrator, is that murder or manslaughter?
Cameron jettisons the ‘Blue Harbour Warrior’ look and manages to look even more ridiculous:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/232753/politicians/david-cameroan-in-afghanistan-is-grabba-ma-selling-houses-in-pictures.html?pid=2703
Peter Spencer on Sky spinning away like mad.
311, you’re right, he does look ridiculous. But then, he’s pledged to double the cash award for serving a 6 month tour in Afghanistan to £4,800 so I doubt the squaddies will give a damn.
[And yes, I'd like to know the source of funding, but it's peanuts in the scheme of things].
312, Viennese waltz or pro-Labour?
gabble while you are here. Any example of the troops humiliating Dave in the same way as Gordon.
what is the difference in your opinion to Dave wearing a suit in Afgh compared to Brown doing the same thing. Why does Dave look ridiculous and Brown not?
Not really expecting a reply, but hey you have to try.
309. Crawling URW again, never wanted too, what am I to do; I cant help it.
Sung to Falling in Love again. Preferably sang by Malene dietrich.
I cant help it!
311 - After last nights “Wristband-gate”, where you and TimBot were shown up to be mocking a services charity, I would have thought you would have moved on from Cameron and Afghanistan.
BTW, I notice you were still unable to answer the simple question if you were able to put party politics aside and support the “Tickets for Troops” scheme. Given the lack of respondence, the only conclusion that can be drawn is no.
respondence -> response
213 “Sunday Telegraph one of two papers with polls tonight. Expect Conservatives to be back in overall majority territory.”
But haven’t the Tories been in overall majority territory for at least the last nine months, with the sole exception of one recent suspect poll?
311 - why are you and tim so obsessed about what cameron wears?
Weird, I would have thought you would pointy out the positives o voting Labour…
oh, ok as you were
311 - That photo looks like an armed anti Banker faction are leading a suspect to his summary trial.
319, on this, saw Anita the Bland on Friday’s Daily Politics. She mentioned the 6 and 10pt lead polls, but magically forgot the 17pt lead poll. Damned media.
314 need you ask?
Sounds like he has been fed “the line to take”
The new polls must be bad for Labour as Gabble and tag-team-tim are on the offense in the sartorial wars again. Ammunition of desperation.
317. Oracle: “…I notice you were still unable to answer the simple question if you were able to put party politics aside and support the “Tickets for Troops” scheme.”
I don’t accept the premise of the quetion ie. that the “Tickets for Troops” scheme is political.
Do you have evidence to the contrary?
321, aye, and this one looks as if the prime suspect is escaping:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/09/article-1226236-0721DAAC000005DC-445_468×626.jpg
321 - lol - and along he comes to prove the point
Lets just remind everybody the campaign PR shot Gabble and Tim spent 12 hours trying to mock. Makes you feel so proud how our government supports are troops, NOT…
WHY, the campaign?
The wristband awareness campaign was created to generate support for all Coldstream Guards soldiers (and attached personnel) and their families. Much thought was placed in the design of the wristband and as an English Regiment, it was decided that the design of the wristband would be unique based on the St Georges Cross
WHAT, are the aims?
The wristband awareness campaign has been created with the following aims:
1. To assist the families of those members of the Battalion who are Killed In Action (support with funeral costs beyond what support the Army provides).
2. To support those injured on operations and their families (support with costs incurred to make alterations to houses if needed etc).
3. Support to families of those currently deployed (provide activities for families, wives and children to help them cope with separation).
4. Support to our soldiers returning from operations; facilitate their transition to normal life once more (money to be spent on adventure training & team building activities).
Both tim and gabble are a pair of adolescent girls.
Their jibes against Cameron’s jumper etc bear all the hallmarks of teenage girls’ school playground verbal bullying of a chosen victim.
Snide and aggressive at the same time.
They probably come straight here from reading their old copies of Bunty or The School Friend.
Morris D that looks like the front cover of ‘How to have a heart attack for dummies’.
Hi, 316. Did the brain transplant come through in time for Xmas ?
Deliveries can be a pain this time of year and it seems you are as illiterate and innumerate as ever.
Nil desperandum.Miracles do happen.
320 Am I imagining this or can it really be true that both Alistair Campbell and Cherie Blair autographed a copy of the official report into Dr. Kelly’s death at a Labour fund-raising event?
326, excellent picture, made me laugh. But is it not cruel to show a man at the end of a half marathon? Nobody looks good after that sort of distance. It was the end of a long run wasn’t it?
321. Picture 10 is pretty good.
“I feel your pain. I’ve been having some trouble with the Taliban myself”.
326 - you might have warned me!!!
I prefer the one with the socks tucked in myself
325 - You clearly have trouble reading, but it is very simple MacGabble, do you support the scheme?
332, nope, it happened.
335, Morris Dancer is a ninja. He strikes without warning!
PfP you are quite correct they did sign it and giggle but when it became public knowledge tried to get the copy back from the Labour party auctioneer? Did they succeed or has Guido got it?
Nemis for this nasty bunch will be glorious and ghastly in equal measure.
It is not wise for Tories to point to Cameron, wristbands and sincerity.
Given the existence of this piece of film which pretty much sums up essence of Dave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmVhB01-nIk
332 - No you aren’t,
http://dizzythinks.net/2006/05/blaircampbell-autograph-hutton-report.html
http://m.democracyforum.co.uk/british-government/30264-cherie-blair-help-labour-profit-dr-david-kelly-suicide.html
332 - That does ring a bell.
Classy.
guess tim and gabbs better up the output of jumper posts to deflect attention
Further tweet from Henry Macrory:
“Tonight’s two polls expected to show Conservative lead averaging 12pts”
339 - You tried that one last night too to no avail. But should we expect any shame from a poster, who couldn’t even stop smearing during a 2 minute silence for Armistice Day? Not sure how much lower you can go after that.
326 Ah yes the mysterious picture of unknown provinance that purported to show a man on his regular exercise run, one whom the photographers staking the area have not been able to catch running since and who no-one can recall seeing running in the area before.
It’s curious that Macrory says that the tories will “be back in overall majority territory”
The last ICM for the Sunday Telegraph had them with a 106 seat majority and the more recent ICM for the Guardian had them with a 62 seat majority.
I hate those loony tunes conspiracy theorists who believe anyone not for closer integration in the EU has to be a nazi. Or those ones that think that raising inheritence tax thresholds so that only millionaires pay, will only help millionaires. Nutters.
310 I don’t do criminal law, so I don’t know. I suspect you’d find it very hard to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the behaviour of the bully actually caused the suicide, though.
332 That is correct. Unbelievably offensive.
148 & Mike S I knew and worked with David Kelly. His suicide is still puzzling, but to me is still the best theory. John O summarizes my feelings on this precisely.
340 Those two would have been happy to sign it with Dr Kellys blood, given the opportunity.
342 - AVERAGING 12 points.
So what do we guess, 10 pointer and a 14 pointer?
332. Yes - what scum.
342. If he’s right then the hung parliament narrative is going to be hard to sustain.
C’mon gabbs, you have had plenty of time to provide some evidence of the troops humiliating Dave in the same way the did Gordon. Especially as you were so full on about the disregard they hold him in a couple of threads ago. It couldn’t be that you are basically a lying shill could it?
I mean someone who posted this
http://www.anorak.co.uk/232753/politicians/david-cameroan-in-afghanistan-is-grabba-ma-selling-houses-in-pictures.html?pid=2703
as an example of someone looking ridiculous but ignores the ones below could not be a partisan, lying shill could they/
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/21/article-0-0202FE1600000578-912_468×562.jpg
http://politicalbetting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/brown-running-tongue-triple.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vC43AIa-0YU/Sa7-6CPEo3I/AAAAAAAAGhc/CE4xYhkn9No/s400/trousers%2520tucked%2520into%2520sock.jpg
gabble, if I was you I would probably stop posting comparison pictures because Brown is always going to come out looking like a tw@
350, won’t be beyond that, I’d've thought. Be interesting to see which poll says what, and (if applicable) how the weightings work out.
342 - Last lead was 13 and previously we had ICM showing 17 point leads. So lead down from that high but up from YouGov and ComRes’s 10pt leads…
350 11 and 13 I’d say which fits the ‘overall majority’ meme and is a point or two off their recent average leads with ICM/YouGov/ComRes (pre-MORI)
Who is due a poll beside ICM. Yougov maybe, if so I’d expect that to be showing 10 points lead.
351, why? They’ll just ignore the bigger lead, like the airbrushing of the 17pt lead from the media narrative.
339 - ah bless, tim
Feeling your pain.
Actually dont want to be a purveyor of untruths like you so lets reword that…..
savouring your pain, thats better
Sean Fear thanks.
342. One 14% and the other 10% perhaps?
For ICM I reckon something like 41/27/18
Avram 2 - OGH 0. Get in !
Generally ConHome get news of ICM’s Sunday Telegraph polls before anybody else - so it might be worth monitoring there.
342 Sounds like we’re back to 40%-28%-18%-14%
gabbs, sorry, forgot this one of the early Adonis that is Gordon.
http://lifeinthenhs.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/freckly_gordon_brown.jpg
364 - thats from when he was telling people how not to pay their way isnt it?
housebricks in a carrier bag… lol
Who thought back then he would attempt the same thing on an industrial scale later in life
I wonder if the other poll is a BPIX for the Mail on Sunday.
There’s always this one too:
http://www.stylosophy.it/wp-galleryo/gordon-brown-make-up/gordon-brown-make-up.jpg
364. (d(too)
You do understand that I’m not actually following any of these links?
If it helps, I’m happy to concede:
Cameron = Brown
You do understand that I’m not actually following any of these links?
by Gabble December 5th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
But you expect us to follow yours. Well that is Nulabour all right. Do as I say not as I do.
367 Cameron = Brown
Only in your dreams gabbs
The Sunday Telegraph’s last ICM was a 17 point lead, so unless there is a poll with a 7 point lead, or less, we are going to see at least one newspaper reporting a narrowing lead.
gabbs, just to cheer you up. A result result that shows Gordon well ahead of Dave
Google search terms
david cameron jokes 2009
Results 1 - 10 of about 563,000 for david cameron jokes 2009. (0.31 seconds)
gordon brown jokes 2009
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,350,000 for gordon brown jokes 2009. (0.09 seconds)
It’s being laughed at that gets them in the end.
Interesting spin opportunity for somebody.
Lib Dem new mansion tax is on £2 million homes now. Nick Clegg home is worth ~£1.3 mill. Wonder what Cable’s home is worth?
342,363,
Last ICM S Telegraph 42%,25%,21%,12%,(polling late October)
SuggestCon 40%,Lab 27% Lib 21% oth 12% gives a lead of 13% and an overall majority of 34.
re 370 But the last ICM poll was 42-29-19.
I think the Tories will be might relieved if they are still in the 40s in any poll.
Oh look another Balls up
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6721602/IGCSE-row-as-state-schools-are-banned-from-offering-rigorous-exams.html
gabbs, missed your reply sorry.(that should really read, missed your sorry reply) Now that you have proved that you do read this stuff and are able to provide a response. How have the troops humilated Dave in the same way that they did Gordon?
Should be easy for you, you tried to tell us the troops don’t like Dave, so prove it.
Without getting too hung up on details of opinion polls, it does seem to me that this weekend marks the point which is likely to be peak of the micro-sized Brown Bouncelet III.
My reason for saying this so specifically is that I think the ‘media narrative’ after the PBR will comprise at least one, and probably more than one, of the following:
1) ‘Brown playing party politics rather managing the economy’
2) ‘Labour plan for massive tax rises whilst public spending remains out of control’
3) ‘Markets take fright as Labour’s spending plans don’t add up’
4) ‘Darling announces savage cuts as Labour’s spending binge hits the buffers’
re 373. You should always make the comparison with the last survey from the pollster in order to get the trend.
374 - I think thats right.
The SPIN markets have roughly got a 41-28-20 seats result factored in.
If the Tories drop to 39 that will move.
Gabble Gabble Gabble, Gabble Gabble Gabble, said the monkey to the chimp,
Timmy Timmy Timmy, Timmy Timmy Timmy, said the chimpy to the monk,
All day long they would babble away, they would be so happy and gay, posting from the Bunker in a Gab, Gab, Gabble way. Etc.
From a stupid holywood song of the 60’s.
377 - You’ll notice Con Home are talking up the”New” Australian Liberal PArty, and a couple of by elections in safe Liberal seats. (Held on to both but with a swing against them)
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/international/2009/12/australias-new-liberal-leader-easily-passes-first-elections-test.html
Is climate your new Europe?
from the link at 375,
“…IGCSEs, which have been modelled on the old O-level, are favoured in hundreds of leading private schools, including Eton, St Paul’s, Manchester Grammar, Harrow and Winchester.
The Tories have pledged to offer the IGCSE in state schools….”
So the Tories are willing to fund the opportunity for state school pupils to compete at the same level as the most expensive private schools and Labour are blocking it.
Doesn’t look good against the current tory toff meme does it?
Tonights polls
Posted on December 5th, 2009 by Anthony Wells
I’ve no confirmation of any polls tonight, but CCHQ’s Henry Macrory has tweeted that there will be two, one in the Sunday Telegraph (so almost certainly ICM) and one elsewhere, averaging a lead of 12 points.
I can’t vouch for that. ICM’s previous poll showed figures of CON 42%, LAB 29%, LDEM 19%, so a twelve point lead would be pretty much no change.
I’ll be out tonight at the opening night of the local pantomime, so I’ll update when I’ve finished “He’s behind you”-ing and got home. Feel free to use this thread to discuss the new polls should they turn up before I do.
I keep an open mind
382 - like a lot of things Labour, honesty and decency have no part of it.
I don’t think Labour ever got that it lost support from the public sector over Dr Kelly. Most of the civil servants I worked with couldn’t believe how the government hung him out to dry.
re 379. I’m currently a Labour buyer on SPIN at 207 and an LD buyers at 50 - but my total stake is three times as much with the latter.
We first got news of the last Sunday Telegraph poll at 8.51pm on the Saturday night. I wonder if we’ll have to wait as long this evening.
Chris Kamara is a national treasure. I thought I wuld just bring that to the forum’s attention.
As Mike said assuming the Tories are still at or above 40%, CCO will be pleased and it means Labour will still be in the 20s which is even better.
I really hope Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson help gordon Brown lead Labour to its worst defeat since the 1920s. Short of seeing them facing exposure for the activities they have got up to over the past 13 years, that would be their most fitting “present” to the Labour party.
For all the recent polls and bravado, the near-bankrupt Labour party is still fighting an intensive rearguard. If it is avoid annihilation, the party has to hold on in Scotland, Wales and urban Northern England.
…
On the other hand, the pledge undermines Brown’s voluble resentment of the ‘classist Tories and their rich friends’. The recently beleaguered Tories will be cook-a-hoop, and must emphasise that Brown has promised an inheritance tax cut until the electorate descends into narcolepsy.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5603313/the-correct-decision-but-a-tactical-blunder.thtml
390
Oh dear.
Have me done this story?
Tony Blair funded by obscure oligarch
Tony Blair’s new paymaster is an obscure oligarch with business links to Syria, Iran and Afghanistan, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/azerbaijan/6728429/Tony-Blair-funded-by-obscure-oligarch.html
Does tim know Mr Blair’s tax status. He does after all seem to be abreast of Ashcroft’s, Dave’s, George’s and Zac’s. I feel we should be told and who better than our resident tax expert to enlighten us all?
A number of posters have commented that the family of Dr Kelly do not want matters re-examined.
I remember thinking at the time that there was evident and considerable tension between Dr Kelly and his wife — she clearly thought he had been very foolish in leaking to journalists.
It seems quite likely to me that Dr Kelly did commit suicide — and probably both the deterioration in his personal relationship with his wife, together with public humiliation in his professional life, were the main factors.
393 - He also seems to be some sort of mystic, knowing when in the future relatives of said men are going to die.
392 - I think I posted it earlier, but lets remind ourselves of the man who was deemed by the Labour Party not good enough to lead Labour anymore but strangely enough was the ideal president of Europe.
392 - Which gives me an opportunity to remind people of this new site from Channel 4:
http://whoknowswho.channel4.com/
Quite interesting and you can suggest links if you think they have been missed…
309 URW
You are a rough diamond. I used to think you should be sent to Antwerp for a cut and polish but no longer.
395.Gwynfa
“A number of posters have commented that the family of Dr Kelly do not want matters re-examined”
Don’t forget it was suggested that Dr Kelly’s wife was threatened with loss of her entitlement to part of his pension if she made a fuss.
I suspect both Labour and Conservatives will have dropped with from the last ICM - Thinking something like 39-27 Con/Lab.
399 It is a very sad case, but I think in her place I would feel guilt and remorse. I was not aware of the point about pension rights, but that also may be a factor. So, it is completely understandable that she doesn’t want the matter re-examined.
Of course, those who should feel guilt and remorse are the blood-spattered figures of Blair & Campbell — and also the whole lying panoply of Labour party stools, from tim to Nick Palmer.
378 Depoends on what trewd you are looking for .Personally I find the month to month trend more useful than weekly movements.In the case of the ICM Sunday Telgraph they have generally shown figures higher for the Lib dems and lower for Labour than Guardian ICM .Hence the comparison with last months Telegraph ICM.
————————-
General Election - Exeter
————————-
This afternoon is a damp, cold, windy, miserable time to be outside in Exeter. And who is that knocking on my door?
It’s a young lady asking whether Hannah Foster of the Conservative Party can count on my support in the general election. Given that my ward returned a Labour councillor in the County Council elections just gone, I’m impressed that the Tories are identifying their supporters here at such an early stage.
It makes me think it is more likely that they will take the seat. Exeter is #176 on the UK Polling Report list of Tory target seats; taking it would represent a majority of, I think, about 100 for Cameron.
Notwithstanding that there has been a slight narrowing of the polls recently, and the idle media have changed their narrative a smidgen to portray a Cameron wobble, it still looks to this observer as though there’s a good chance of a Tory landslide in six months and a day.
392 - a man backed by wealthy Arabs and Muslims is surely the best person to tackle the Middle East peace process, then?
401 - And forget not that these repulsive specimens were still smearing Dr. Kelly just days after his death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3124677.stm
Vermin.
*** Betting Post ***
Apologies if this has already been noted, but I see that Ladbrokes have a new market up:
Cabinet Casualties
Applies to cabinet members at the time of the election. Based on the twenty three full cabinet members as detailed at http://www.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/government_and_opposition/hmg.cfm
0 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats at the next election 6/4
1 Cabinet minister to lose their seat at the next election 5/1
2 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats at the next election 7/1
3 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats at the next election 8/1
4 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats at the next election 8/1
5 or more Cabinet ministers to lose their seats at the next election 2/1
Also they’ve adjusted their odds on the vote share handicap, now as follows:
Conservatives (Scratch) 2/1
Labour (+15) 6/4
Liberal Democrats (+22) 7/4
The head of England’s independent health and social care regulator, Care Quality Commission, is to step down from her post in February.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/8396795.stm
405 - from the link
“Number 10’s capacity to disgust us would seem positively boundless,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Equally true today
did someone mention Campbell?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6945349.ece
“Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, told the head of Britain’s Armed Forces to be more positive about plans to invade Iraq, it emerged yesterday.
Admiral Lord Boyce told the official inquiry into the war that he was asked to give a “half-full rather than half-empty assessment” of the situation during regular briefings at Downing Street.
The former Chief of the Defence Staff said he had raised concerns about an order to keep the war plans a closely guarded secret, which meant he could not order new equipment until four months before the invasion.
Some soldiers and relatives of the 179 servicemen and women who died in the invasion and occupation claim the lack of preparations led to a shortage of body armour and other vital equipment.”
403 Tory PPC for Exeter - she looks like a friendly soul; she’d get my vote alright:
http://www.hannahfoster.org/
The prose on this page
http://www.hannahfoster.org/about
is practically illiterate. Do you think it is deliberately dumbing down to Devon voters?
re 406
*** Note to shadsy if you are around ***
This bet refers to ‘23 full cabinet members’, but three of those - including of course Milord Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham - are not MPs. Might be worth a clarification.
I always thought that it was Cherie Booth’s ambition to become a judge - I wonder whether her career took a serious step backwards when she autographed that copy of the Official Report into Dr David Kelly’s death? It certainly struck me and doubtless others as a most shameful episode.
On the other hand, perhaps her husband has made so many millions since leaving office, that it simply no longer matters.
Btw, when, if ever, are we ever going to see the Blair diaries/autobiography?
413 - June 2010?
The truth will out:
“Campbell exonerated by Hutton report”
“Former Downing Street press chief Alastair Campbell did not “sex-up” the Iraq dossier with a claim he knew to be untrue, Lord Hutton has found.”
“Lord Hutton found there was no “dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy by the government to covertly leak Dr Kelly’s name to the media”.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3437403.stm
415 - I remember that time couldn’t get any white-wash for the walls anywhere, B&Q, Focus, Homebase all sold out. Must have been a massive bulk order by somebody.
415. What a white wash that was!
415 – There are very few people other than your good self Gabble that believe the Hutton report was anything other than a white wash.
In fact the last seven words are superfluous.
410. Certainly a much more attractive figure than the current slug of an MP.
415 Gabble - Yes, please, give us more of that.
Perhaps Labour should run a whole Party Political Broadcast on the Hutton enquiry and the wonderful light it shed on the excellent men and women at the centre of new Labour? Memories are fading, you know, and I’m sure voters would like to be reminded of what Campbell, Blair, and other heroes of the movement did.
You could do a follow-up on McBride, so that people can see it wasn’t just a one-off.
Campbells are always lying, evil, treacherous scum. They have been since the days of Big Colin himself, eight hundred years ago, they were when they fought on the side of their Hanovarian masters at Culloden and they are now. The name means ‘twisted mouth’ in Gaelic - they were not given it by accident.
The Massacre of Glencoe sums them up, take someone’s hospitality and then murder them in the night - yes, you can see they are the spiritual precursers of New Labour, and Alistair of that evil ilk is right at home.
406 Richard, I have long been extolling here the virtues of Labour winning Ladbrokes’ share of the vote handicap and I’m not surprised to see the odds move in its favour.
As regards the market for “Cabinet Casualties” at the next GE, I had a previous such bet, I believe with Ladbrokes, approx 12-15 months ago and iirc, I then opted for 6-8 losing their seats. Of course, the cabinet at that time was rather different and included the likes of Ruth Kelly and Jacqui Smith.
Will the 1990s NuLab stars bring back the magic?
That is magic, as in deception: actor PM, good at ill-planned foreign invasions, ruinous Chancellor, PC-horror show, rub noses in diversity, monster money wasting, achievements zilch, all backed up by a dirty media/tricks operation. No thanks.
416, 417, 418, 420, 421.
Smears and lies is all you have.
The Hutton conclusions were purely a product of the evidence presented.
Always thought this was the Independent’s best front page
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Whitewash_Independent.jpg
Mike - pity you didn’t run a Guido-style caption contest based on Campbell’s thought bubble as he stared round at Mandy in the picture at the top of this thread. I fancy, however, that you may have needed your edit button at the ready!
424. Do you still leave a mince pie and sherry out on Christmas Eve Gabble?
410 - In the great battle between the Notting Hill Huskies and the Yorkshire Jets, Hannah is definitely on the Cameron side.
We have changed our vehicles - our family car is carbon offset for the first 45k miles and our second car is now a 1.2L start stop low emitting car. We use the train for many journeys, however as David’s girls are too young to travel on their own we have to use the car for many of their trips to us.
We have all energy efficient light bulbs and have done for two years. We keep our heating quite minimally - 3-4 hours a day in winter.
424 ‘The Hutton conclusions were purely a product of the evidence presented.’
In that case, one can only assume that the evidence presented was very carefully selected.
424 – Gabble, play it however you will, however, you don’t have to convince any PBer, it’s the 2 million people that protested on the streets of London that you should be worried about.
The Guardian have gone with ‘that’ picture:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/05/david-cameron-afghanistan-withdrawal-unlikely
Looks like the soldiers are trialling a new mine sweeper.
420 - I know its heresy on here, but I like Bob Ainsworth.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233464/Ainsworth-takes-aim-Obama-suggestion-July-2011-Afghanistan-troop-withdrawal.html
gabble, why are you the last person on here to recognise that you are a poor joke? You endlessly link to articles that do not mean what you think they will from briefly scanning the headline (are you one of the Scottish members with reading problems or as previously revealed do you not even follow your own links). You toe the party line to the extent you make Keith Vass look rebellious. You never answer a direct question, in short you are an identikit Nu-Lab supporter and should be ashamed of yourself.
431 - I thought “that” picture was the one supporting a services charity. Oh no wait that one backfired massively after 12 hours knocking it on PB.
Hutton applied a criminal standard of proof to an inquiry that should have been a couple of notches lower.
Has Dave been photoshopped onto that photo?
Its seems a photo of him trying not to step on the cracks in the pavement in Notting Hill has been transposed onto a Helmand backdrop.
434 - So do I.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgfbCyLXrBk&feature=related
Please could somebody post the photograph of big, brave Gordon, with his machine gun.
I’d like to be reminded what a sack of potatoes enclosed in a very expensive but badly cut suit looks like.
Surprised Cameron made it to Afghanistan, last time he had a trip booked, Gordo threw his toys out the pram and demanded to go just so Cameron couldn’t.
424-Hutton based his report on the following premises;
Anything said on behalf of HMG was presumed to be true unless demonstrably false.
Anything said by anyone else had to be proved.
As a result the bizarre whitewash maquerading as the result of an independent enquiry was inevitable.
What’s wrong with that picture?
441 - You mean this one,
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/10/08/article-1218897-06BD435E000005DC-998_468×621.jpg
Woophs sorry wrong Gordo looking a tit photo link, some many of them, this is the one you mean
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/21/article-0-0202FE1600000578-912_468×562.jpg
edp, see post 354 for nice photo’s of gordon
439. He’s walking downhill on loose stones in the wrong footwear. I’m not sure how you’re expecting him to swagger like Lawrence of Arabia.
439
Back in the playground with the girls again, tim?
Govt ‘To Cut Stake In UK Air Traffic Control’
“The announcement is going to form part of a big pre-PBR push on Whitehall efficiency announced on Monday called ‘Smarter Government’.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/Air-Traffic-Control-Govt-To-Unveil-Plans-To-Cut-Stake-In-Firm-Running-Air-Traffic-Control—Sources/Article/200912115492446?lpos=Business_Carousel_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15492446_Air_Traffic_Control%3A_Govt_To_Unveil_Plans_To_Cut_Stake_In_Firm_Running_Air_Traffic_Control_-_Sources
Oracle, is that one of Gordon with the little fellah genuine? If so WTF is going on with his head? It looks massive.
Either WW3 has just kicked off or there is a world class fireworks display taking place outside my window.
Have Charlton won or something ?
We should spend the next 12 hours mocking Dave in this photo and making complete t1ts of ourselves.
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00942/SNN0512A-682_942497a.jpg
443 - Chris Ames’ 2007 article in the Guardian reveals through FOI documents, how Hutton was “hoodwinked” as Cambell and others were exposed “lying through their teeth”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/may/05/huttonhoodwinked
450 - Well it was published in several national newspapers, and no outcry since, so the only conclusion is that is it genuine.
449 Scott P, from that link is another to reports of an EDL protest in Nottingham. Trouble on Palmers patch?
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/English-Defence-League-Protest-Turns-Violent-In-Nottingham/Article/200912115492565?lpos=UK_News_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15492565_English_Defence_League_Protest_Turns_Violent_In_Nottingham
449 - “It will include an update on the sale of assets, such as the Tote, NHS Professionals and a big student loans portfolio.”
Yawn……money for old rope, the last announcement was only a few weeks ago.
456 (correction) announcement, should have been re-re-re-re-re-re-announcement.
381 - The Aussie by elections are interesting, the labor party opted not to run in either seat and the greens did remarkably well with their best ever results in liberal held seats. Unsurprising given the way that Abbott has been speaking though, give Abbott enough rope and Rudd will walk the next election.
Higgins (Melbourne) was the closest result in sixty years, looking at Bradfield it’s also the lowest percentage the liberals have gained on first preferences since the war there at least (it’s one of their safest seats).
443. penlan
Critics of the Hutton report rarely argue their case on the facts. Partly because they believed the MSM and, therefore, don’t know them and partly because any attempt to do so is bound to failure.
453, simon, nice link, thanks. gabble won’t read it though. He has already stated up thread he only posts links he doesn’t follow them. So no matter whatever counter evidence you present to him will be ignored by the slimy, hard of thinking troll.
459. You lefties will have plenty of time to contemplate the rights and wrongs of the Hutton report (and Iraq and everything else you’ve done) when you booted out of power in a few weeks!
459 - Maybe you should put all the Hutton Inquiry stuff front and centre on all your election material, under the headline “Was Woz Innocent”. See how it goes down with the public.
450 What on earth is a gurning Brown doing, being photographed with Vern Troy? I thought he’d rejected the worshipping of celebrity, so beloved by the sainted Tony.
461, GIN, do you think that in the event of a change of Government they will bother to go back over all this stuff? There must be reams of incriminating evidence locked away in various filing cabinets waiting to be published. The senior civil service have spent years being shat upon and will no doubt be in a very co-operative mood to embarrass various jumped up SPADS and bullying ministers. They will also block the destruction of documentation, it is almost a religion for them to keep records.
463 - But he is his biggest fan, I assume “Renee” Witherspoon is his another one of his favs.
426. ‘Smears and lies is all you have.
The Hutton conclusions were purely a product of the evidence presented.’
When asked about smears on the good name of Alistair Campbell a spokesman replied ‘ Dr David Kelly is unavailable for comment’.
209.”Indeed, there are indications that, unlike Mandy, Campbell’s extremely partisan and nasty obsession with Tory-hatred, bordering on the pathological, will reinforce Brown’s existing tendency in the same direction.”
Campbell’s relationship with Blair was a two way street, I suspect that Blair reined in those aspects of Campbell’s nature a fair bit.
The return of Mandelson and Campbell is a clear sign of just how dire the situation is for this Labour government right now, it will bolster morale in some quarters of the Labour party while being seen as a major turnoff for some of the left leaning floating/Libdem voters who might have switched to Labour for this election.
Its also another sign of just how nasty and negative Labour plan to play this GE campaign, and it won’t just be about causing class wars or dividing lines outside in the country. This will bring back all the old warring factions within the Blair and Brown camps back into Downing Street. Mandelson, Campbell and Whelan all back in the fold, and we know what happened there last time. Old vendetta’s will kick off again as these old protagonists tribally fight to guard their own turf. Pass the popcorn.
464. Probably not Don. But they will certainly have enough time in opposition should they wish to.
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The irony is that if the government had followed Campbell’s advice, to release Kelly’s name against his wishes, things may have turned out differently.
470 – The Government released Dr Kelly’s name into the media, no one is in doubt of that.
469. It’s all unravelling…
452. http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/david-cameron-in-afgahnistan/8098374.jpg
But what about this picture? Where he’s having a nice walk around Kabul? There are so many to choose from!
You’d have to be utterly partisan to deny that both Brown and Cameron looked like fools in Afghanistan. It is the graveyard of both empires and photo-ops.
461
tricky.. are there not rules about what incoming Govts are allowed to see of previous Govts documentation?
471. SimonStClare
They confirmed his name when it was put to them. The alternative was to lie - which would have been unconscionable.
475 - “Tony Blair [British Prime Minister] chaired a meeting at which it was decided to release the name of Dr David Kelly as the source for the BBC’s story that the government “sexed up” its dossier on weapons of mass destruction to justify the war in Iraq, it emerged yesterday.”
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/key.htm
474, mtf, not sure of that. But I am sure there are a few people who thought like this.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
Currently have twitchy bottoms about a few things they wish they had not submitted to paper and more than a few ways they had dealings with civil servants.
475. Gabble: They confirmed his name when it was put to them. The alternative was to
…make no comment.
So weak, Gabs, even by your standards.
In one sense I agree with Gabble that the Hutton Inquiry wasn’t a whitewash.
A ‘whitewash’ normally means that the facts have been painted over, but that wasn’t the case; indeed, as the enquiry published the evidence, a highly-detailed, full-colour painting emerged. As Gabble says, the evidence was all there.
Then at the end, Lord Hutton stepped back from this brightly-coloured canvas, and said ‘I see nothing here but white - oh, except a black mark here against the BBC’.
It really was the most brazenly tendentious conclusion that any UK judge has reached since the 17th century.
However, somehow I don’t think it is one Labour will want to remind people of.
475, gabble even by your own risible standards that is pathetic. They were given a list of names and invited to read them out until the spokesman confirmed which one it was. Don’t be a dick your whole life have today off.
458 - The desire for some in the Conservative party to sell the Australian Liberal split as some form of succes is genuinely baffling to me.
473 - Of course, but laughing at Dave on this site brings out the herd stragglere in what passes for solidarity, as you’ll see from the quality of some of the posters on this thread.
478. LondonStatto
What if a journalist had phoned them up and put the wrong name to them. Should they say ‘no comment’ and allow the journalist to run with the story - what sort of duty of care would that demonstrate towards the falsely accused?
“The alternative was to lie -”
No, the alternative was to make no comment, or neither confirm nor deny.
You have little clue just how atrocious the government confirming the name was seen as in the civil service.
475 The first time I heard Dr Kelly’s name was a Labour MP on Today demanding “your source was Dr Kelly wasn’t it?” and that was before the name was put to the Government. Says to me that the the Government (or “sources” close to the overnment) made sure that Dr Kelly’s name was in the frame before they were asked for confirmation - not quite how you present it. It was deliberate, which explains Tony Blair’s reaction in China, reported on at the time.
The important point is that Campbell=Kelly is a narrative shared by many, including the media, and his return to the fold as the Chilcott Inquiry rubles on, is dangerous for Labour and helpful to the Lib Dems at least, if not the Conservatives.
480 - “They were given a list of names” It’s was far worse than that.
“An aide-memoire by John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee (JIC), shows that the prime minister chaired five meetings on July 7 and 8 at which the strategy of leaking Dr Kelly’s name to the media was agreed.”
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/key.htm
453 - ” Chris Ames’ 2007 article in the Guardian reveals through FOI documents, how Hutton was “hoodwinked” as Cambell and others were exposed “lying through their teeth”
Labour lies, we all know it, this is what they do.
I think people couldn’t believe quite how dishonest they were in the early days, those days long behind us now.
479 I’m still furious that Hutton excused Blair for telling journalists on the flight to Tokyo that he had nothing to do with the leaking of Kelly’s name,when the inquiry established that he chaired the meeting that decided to leak his name.
gabble, how you have the gall to pontificate about duty of care when the name was leaked and confirmed by government (read nu-labour spin machine) sources is beyond me.
Even I who thinks you are lower than a snakes armpit did not think you could stoop so low.
479. Not sure it was quite in the same league as the judge’s performance at the Thorpe trial.
“No comment” now apparently means giving carte blanche to media lynch mobs. I see.
479 - The Doctors on the TV today pressing their murder conspiracy (strange logic they employ re evidence, but still) raise some interesting questions.
If the Kelly family do not want the case reopened be, should it be because an MP wrote a book suggesting that Kelly’s wife may be inviolved in a cover up, and a small group of people have a theory?
I know that some who believe in a 7/7 conspiracy are prepared to claim that the state has got at witnesses who survived the bombing, should they have an enquiry?
AL Fayed got his enquiry because he was related to one of the dead, but I’m not clear on what the rule of thumb should be.
475 - you seem to be twisting the facts a bit there gabs…..
Nothing new I know
439 tim
Has Dave been photoshopped onto that photo?
After careful analysis I have concluded that Dave was not photoshopped. The iconic effect has been achieved by photoshopping the rubble terrain over a clear blue lake.
Labour selection in Darlington:
Jenny Chapman is the new candidate. Councillor for Cockerton West Ward and Council’s Cabinet Member with the Children and Young People Portfolio. Former assistant to Alan Milburn.
483 - Dave is saying
“So until last week there was a glacier here, wait till I tell Zac”
491 The rule of thumb should be:-
Any time Tim rubbishes it as a conspiracy it should have a full independent enquiry as there is more than likely something worth investigating, given his and Labour’s propensity to lie morning, noon and night.
495, tim desperately spreading ground bait. Let’s all keep quiet and see who is first to take a nibble at it, sshhhh everybody.
496 – Tim, must be getting bored writing the word “conspiracy” all the time?
It is the last resort of a scoundrel and quite pitiful that that is all he has left to fall back on.
53. “Polls certainly indicate a much bigger shift from Labour to Conservative in England than in Scotland”
About nine hours too late to respond to Sean Fear, but I don’t dispute that point - it just has nothing to do with the issue I was raising. I was talking about Labour’s share of the vote in its own right, not in relation to the Conservatives.
496 Sorry that should say:-
Any time Tim rubbishes it as a conspiracy it should have a full independent enquiry as there is more than likely something worth investigating, given his and Labour’s propensity to Lie, cover up and smear morning, noon and night.
Sorry shouldn’t really forget the other obvious facets of new labour philosophy.
IF the true goal for Labour and its strategists is achieving a soft landing - a Conservative minority government or at least majority of under 50 - then Mandbell (or Campy?) may indeed be their best bet for 2010.
496
The rule of thumb should be to scroll past tim’s posts 99% of the time.
I think I caught up thread that there are polls tonight..?
Any ideas when they will be released here.
Get your popcorn boys and girls……
http://www.labour-watch.com/sleaze.htm
Some amusing comments before we start to wade through the links
“The public turfed out the last Tory government because of sleaziness; the “Cash for Questions” row and the failure of some back-bench Tory MPs to declare minor gifts or sources of income was too much for the public to stomach and they opted for a Labour government, ignoring Labour’s track record of sleaze in local government.
Eight years on, the Tories’ brand of sleaze looks pretty weedy compared to the wholesale corruption practised by the likes of Mandelson, Robinson, Irvine, Vaz, Byers, Jo Moore, Milburn, Hughes, Paul Corrigan, and Blair himself!
That’s the big difference - whereas under the Tories there were undeniably some individual back-bench MPs with dodgy agendas of their own, the Labour government is rotten to the core - the cabinet itself; the Prime Minister himself. Tony Blair was caught red-handed lying to the House of Commons about the £1m contribution Labour accepted from the motor racing industry. It was a defining moment and would easily have been the end of a less slimy politician’s career.”
Oh and this
“In the old days sleaze was about politicians succumbing to the material temptations placed before them, such as expense accounts and foreign travel, or it involved the personal sexual morality or marital fidelity of politicians. There was little or no direct impact on the general public, but the press and opposition politicians worked themselves into a frenzy about it.
New Labour’s New Sleaze works the other way round. It is all about the perversion of democratic government; matters of great importance to the public being cooked up behind closed doors, justified by massaged figures, semi-leaked documents and news management.”
And the line that tells the tale
“This page was getting far too big as we were all drowning in sleaze - so we have now moved all the IraqGate stories onto a separate page. Please have a look and spare a thought for the late Dr Kelly, whose usefulness as a scapegoat outlived him.”
484.”The important point is that Campbell=Kelly is a narrative shared by many, including the media, and his return to the fold as the Chilcott Inquiry rubles on, is dangerous for Labour and helpful to the Lib Dems at least, if not the Conservatives.”
Ted, I agree, which is why the return of Campbell during the Chilcott inquiry is so dangerous for the government right now. His tribal hatred of the Tories combined with having no qualms of about getting personal will sit well within the Brownite bunker. People talk about Brown’s renewed confidence at PMQ’s this week, as if he is totally happy to be back on his natural turf bears that out.
But this will not go down well with left leaning Libdem/floating voters that might have been tempted to vote tactically for Labour.
On the polls, Mike regular has to correct us when we compare polling figures from different pollsters. But maybe these polls due out tomorrow might show a slightly different picture from some of the others because they are polling at a different time in the week? Its Christmas, could we see a disparity emerging between weekend and weekday polling?
New thread
Maybe the TimBot instant dismissal of these doctors claims would hold more weight if he told us his own academic qualifications.
I am not a medical doctor so have no idea if,
“in a 13-page dossier prepared as the basis for the legal action, the doctors argue that the bleeding from Dr Kelly’s ulnar artery in his left wrist is “highly unlikely” to have caused his death. They say a number of studies have shown that it is unusual for a patient to die from a single deep cut to the wrist.”
is complete cods wallop or not, and thus unable to dismiss their claims.
495 tim
The allusion was to a real not pseudo religion.
Either you deliberately misunderstood or your temperate readings came from UEA datasets.
502 My rule of thumb,both here and when I go out later,is to scroll past 100% of Man Utd fans
Have just read Times (is this the Brit eqivalent of People Magazine these days?) story re: the revelations of Sally Bercow.
Surely the most interesting and amazing bit was the final paragraphs:
‘Nadine Dorries, a Tory MP who opposed Mr Bercow’s selection as Speaker, said: “We desperately need to restore authority and respect to Parliament. What this interview has done is remove any painstaking progress Parliament has made and reduced the Speaker and his office to that of a laughing stock.’
‘“How can we ask the people to trust us, when the man who holds us to account has such poor judgment that he allowed his wife to give such an appalling, self-obsessed interview?”’
Excuse me but:
1. Who is NDMP to critize ANYONE on grounds of “authority”, “respect” or “laughing stock”?
2. What is this shyte about how John Bercow “allowed his wife”? Say what? You mean NDPM obtains persmission before saying/doing/makkng an exhibition of herself? Then he’s an even bigger jackasssss than anybody knew!
Clearly the Kelly
murdersuicide story still touches a raw nerve with a great many people, years after the event. It simply won’t readily go away - hardly surprising given the Alistair Darling & Cherie Blair shameful autographing of the official report.511 Third line, for Alistair Darling, read Alistair Campbell. Apologies to the first named.
Popped onto the site. See Tim and Gabble are still muttering irrationally to themselves. Life in Brown’s bunker eh!
510. It’s like the old one…
J Bercow - Oh Darling, you’re such a fool.
S Bercow - If I was clever, would I be married to you?
512. It’s not Alistair Campbell but as in Alas!