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....was pretty damn good.
The man can present and he writes a damn good speech (i understand it is HIM who does his own)
1 hour, and I was riveted to thew radio.
Wonder if he has any hope of delivering? If he did have, he'll be next PM, because with a charisma speech maker he'll get a good band of followers like this.
Thoughts?
/dons flame proof suit
It was an okay speech. I noticed he was using word 'change' a lot.. wonder where he is getting inspiration from.
Funny how politicians sound in touch with voters when they are in opposition.
this wasn't so much being "in touch" more really well judged.
How to support the governement to help get us out of the finacial quicksand AND slaughter them for being the opposition.
I will be voting Conservative at the next election. The speech was good but didn't influence me any more as they won my vote, due to Labour's muck-ups. However saying that, the speech showed me he was ready to lead the country. Some have criticised Cameron for not setting out detailed policies, but how can he when there is a suspicion that the government books are in a bad shape. You can not expect someone to set out some detailed policies without them first looking at what on the books. The other factor is Labour would most probably take those policies and say that there theirs.
For once i'm happy that a party is not saying 'we will cut taxes on x, y and z' Yes I would love taxes cut, but without the other side looking at the money situation on the books that's hard. I was also pleased to hear that Labour's Quangos would go!!! I hope Cameron does act on cutting waste!!!
And lastly.............Cameron stated that he would be looking at MP'S perks and so. so hopefully after the next election i won't have to hear who MP x has bought a new plasma tv or claimed money for a house which 10 miles form London.
All in all there's a little hope in the distance.
TBH I think change is what we need... so no harm in using the word... I haven't had a listen but I like the cut of his jib or what ever street words we're using these days.
will have a listen later.. it on the bbc?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7646660.stm
The word cloud is interesting too!
wow, i may even vote this time round. yes yes I know...
You kinda have to...you don't want a country being handed to you in a crappy state now, do you!Quote:
How to support the governement to help get us out of the finacial quicksand AND slaughter them for being the opposition.
They really have no better ideas than Labour on how to handle things, they'll throw mud and hope it sticks, and attempt to divert any attention to themselves by shouting and pointing the finger at the opposition louder "ner ner ner, look how badly they're cocking things up!".
In reality they've got nothing, sure they'll offer lots of election bribes (tax cuts, reduced/abolished student loans), and they might even put some of them in place - unfortunately all the money still has to come from somewhere, and they'll just either borrow even further, add in new taxes under the table, or try to sell off what's left of our infrastructure (although there's not much left for them to sell off after the last time..).
Unfortunately there is no easy way to turn this country around now, but the general public are too short-sighted to see any long term plan through - they're only worried about what they have in their pockets right now.
Seriously, our country is no longer capable of fending for itself - the french own our power network, the spanish own most of our travel network, the dutch own our fishing industry (what's left of it), we can't even feed ourselves properly because it's cheaper to import over produced stock from half way around the world, and we've no industry left to build anything.
They can bang on about change all they like, but in reality, it'll be the same old same old..
The political parties are too busy trying to score points off each other these days, than work together properly to pull this country around again.
Stoo...... get the black paint and easel out mate ;)
Black Johnny, Black...... (old sketch from The Fast Show)
All he needs to do is win on personality politics, which isn't that difficult to Gordon. I'm watching it now, and one thing I'm glad not to here is constant clapping after every sentance like there was in the labour speech.
Whether he can be as good as he says he will be is undoubtful, but I doubt he can do much worse than what gordon is doing. It's not entirely his fault i admit, Blair did well to get out when he did.
I wouldn't be surprised if UKIP gained momentum. The BNP certainly have. People becoming fed up with 2-party governments.
Style over substance again.. but at least he's actually trying to make it about the style/personality in the first place.
Really not looking forward to them getting in power.
That transcript is looooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnng......I got about a third of the way through.
Frankly I don't think it's going to make much of a difference who holds power in regards to the economy, changing the management won't change the weather.
QFTQuote:
Originally Posted by Stoo
Apprently they messed up the economy 20years ago with letting banks sell more then they have and the builders society(am i right?) were by law forced to sell less than they could and look now, the banks fall and the others shares rise loads and they are safe, conservative told the labour that the banks wont fail but look now the labour were right and yet they get the flak.
Why cant they just STFU and make it a proper democracy by putting any new law on BBC 1 and let the public vote on it, that would win. They steal 24k for their second homes which is pathetic, im fed up with this country.
it's alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll black!Quote:
Originally Posted by Zak33
I thought it lacked any substance whatsoever never mind detailed policies. If Labour hadn't made such a mess of things there'd be no way the Tories would get in. As previously mentioned, opposition is easy, especially given current economic uncertainty. Having said that, I do think it's time for a change, it'll give us all something new to complain about.:)
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2...changes-p1.php (the end bit ;))Quote:
Originally Posted by pp05
Where are we sleeping tonight, mother?Quote:
Originally Posted by directhex
IN FATHER'S GRAVE?
thats it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Fishcake
He's keeps banging on about being a 40 odd year old father of 2.4 children and family being the most important thing. So, if I chose to live my life without any family, am I to suffer for it?
Whilst I understand the drive to uphold family values 100%, the most important thing is for each citizen to live a free and fair life, something I'll take a LOT of convincing that the conservatives believe in.
Shame on you! Saying that I once voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party as the bloke had me in stitches when I saw him campaigning in Bournemouth!Quote:
Originally Posted by tiggerai
Could you Imagine it all the Chavs voting on things they know nothing about!!!! It would be worse than it is now!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hicks12
I have to admit that Camerons speech was quite nice but didnt set out any concrete polices.
I wonder how may people watched Nick Cleggs speech?
Thing is ..... I'll take a lot of convincing that New Labour do either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Konan555
After all, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, has feathers and lives on a pond, it's probably a duck. And on that note, judge Labour on what they've actually done, not what they say they're going to do and certainly not on what they say they've already done. And what they've actually done is preside over screwing the economy into the ground, with Brown as Chief Screwer.
As for Cameron and his lot, I have no idea whether they'll be any good, but on a practical level, it's pretty much them or Labour and, whilst not much of a choice, it's a no-brainer between the two for me.
And as for having no policies, well, it's not quite true,. They've announced a few things. And once of the first things they announced was that they weren't going to be announcing too much, until the time was right.
There is NO point in announcing major policy planks when you are years off of any chance to implement them. You risk the government nicking ones they like, filing off the serial numbers, changing the bodywork a bit, giving them a cosmetic respray and announcing them as their own. Or, of course, you risk shifting the debate (if the government get half a chance) onto Tory policy (which doesn't matter yet as they can't implement it) and away from Government policy (which does matter because they are implementing it).
Also, of course, if you're going to have a policy argument with Government over your policy as an opposition, you don't want to do it a couple of years before an election, because if you announce policy now, and have the debate, come the election when you announce it again, the Government will simply turn round and say but that policy is two years old .... .don't you have any new policies?
And also, circumstances have a habit of overtaking policies. It's quite conceivable to announce a policy that makes sense this week, and then have something (like a credit crisis, bank failures and a US $700 billion rescue package announced) that totally invalidate the publicity you might have got, and quite possibly leave you with a policy that made sense last week but doesn't now that circumstances have changed.
So what do the Tories gain from announcing too much in the way of policies at this point? Not much. About the only advantage of announcing them is that is undermines a major Labour gripe about lack of policy. Well putting up with that, I'm afraid, is the price to pay for the strategic decision to hold off on policy announcements. And, a strategic decision is exactly what it is.
So, I said they won't announce much until the time is right, and that begs the question of when that will be. Well, a few months, maybe a year before an election. You can't announce a whole policy platform all in one go if you expect most people to get the message. Most people won't read manifestos, for a start. They'll rely mainly on the papers and evening news. So you want to be able to announce something, and get the maximum publicity from it by milking it and the debate about it for a couple of weeks at least, before you announce something else ..... and repeat.
But doing that, and making the maximum impact on public perceptions, takes months. So, you need to announce policies far enough in advance to milk the benefit, without doing it so far in advance as to lose the benefit by the time the election rolls round. And as only Brown knows exactly when that will be (though the latest date for it is set in legislation), Brown can change the agenda at will. And that, of course, is a major advantage to the incumbents. If Cameron assumes the election is going to be April 2010 and sets August 2009 to start the roll-out, Brown can mess him up by calling an election for September 2009, giving insufficient time to maximise a policy schedule roll-out.
All this, of course, is what scared the knickers clean off Cameron and his cohorts when Brown appeared to be preparing for the Election-That-Never-Was. That caught the Tories totally wrong-footed, and their "bring-it-on" bravado was both a masterful bluff and about the only thing they could say. And Brown bottled it. Ironic, seeing as he had a honeymoon period, a gold-plated reason (taking over from Blair) for going to the country, and a poll lead that now must look like halcyon days to him.
So moaning at the Tories for having no policy is a price they'll have to, and quite willingly do, pay for the strategic decision, but it's really a non-complaint, because it misses (or deliberately ignores) the fundamental political decision that it actually is, rather than actually being true). But then, since when had something not being true bothered recent Labour Prime Ministers? In Blair's case, you only have to look at what the intelligence community told him about Iraqi WMD and how he presented what they'd said to us, and for Brown, you need look no further than his fatuous decision to abolish the 10p tax rate, his ludicrous denials over the effect it would have, and then how he tried to spin his "correction" of that cockup. I don't think I've EVER seen such a ham-fisted balls-up of a major Government decision as Brown's handling of that. I know Brown is supposed to have a great clunking fist, but I didn't realize he liked belting himself on the nose with it!
For me, Cameron et. al. certainly haven't won my hear or mind. I'm yet to be convinced that they're much more than public schoolboy yuppie marketing managers, that talk a good game but don't actually know which way is up. But Labour have certainly lost both my heart and mind, through rank incompetence and the hubris of pretending that everything's gone according to plan.
I don't know that I particularly want Cameron running the country, but I do know I don't want Brown etc running it ...... and as for the notion of Milliband running it ...... shudder!
Cameron, in my opinion, has the less than singular appeal of appearing to be the best option from a very poor set of alternatives.
The problem the Conservatives have is the fact that any smidgen of a good idea is going to be snaffled up by those in government. In the current climate no-one really gives a monkeys what the Conservatives would propose with regard to the financial situation simply because they are not in power and can do "Sweet Felicity Arkwright" about the current situation (although it's looking like central governments have similar lack of powers - tries not to invoke a smilie of any flavour) and so any sound-bites will be platitudes espousing good government. What people think of that will be forgotten when Brown is forced to call an election.
What they have to do is to build sound policy and continue to show how the past decade plus has been squandered by the Labour administration and why we (us tax payers) are paying for it.
Very interesting post Saracen. I have a few thingss though:
YOu have used the same equation to support the Tories though. You cant support the Tories over their achievements as they have done anything or even proposed to do anything.Quote:
And on that note, judge Labour on what they've actually done, not what they say they're going to do and certainly not on what they say they've already done.
Or do they have anything credible at all?Quote:
So, I said they won't announce much until the time is right, and that begs the question of when that will be.
Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.Quote:
I don't know that I particularly want Cameron running the country, but I do know I don't want Brown etc running it ...... and as for the notion of Milliband running it ...... shudder!
Although i think Brown is a very poor leader, i do get the feeling that Cameron is nothing more than a showman with no substance. Unfortunately, 'talking the talk' and not having to 'walk the walk' is often a way to get on in politics.
I actually genuinely believe, that when push comes to shove, and Labour grow a pair and oust Brown, that Labour will still win the next election.
I don't really buy the idea that you shouldn't announce policies for fear the govt will nick them - if you care about the country and what's best for it then you put out the best ideas you can and be pleased that they are put into action.
I know I'd look more kindly on a Tory party that came up to an election having already demonstrated great policies that were so good the existing govt had to put them in place, than one saying 'we've got great ideas but we'll hold onto them until you elect us'. Like in most creative jobs, it's not the actual ideas that are important, it's demonstrating that you can keep coming up with them in the first place.
Change is what a lot of people want at the moment, for a lot of people serious hard financial times are hitting and things only look to be getting worse, so its a word people want to hear.
Still as with anything is he only saying what people want to hear just till/if he gets elected?
Oh hell yeah. It's the singletons like us with no kids in this country keeping it going with our ever increasing tax bills to fund the boom of pregnant teenagers and whatnot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Konan555
My tax bill has gone up and up and up all the time and what do I get for it? I see less police officers on the beat, more CCTV style cameras being placed as an alternative to the police and tin-pot hairbrained schemes galore coming into fruition such as fineing people for leaving their wheely bins out a bit too long ( I got a warning yesterday over this! Tuesday is our 'bin' day and because it was not brought in before 6pm, I had a warning letter about possible court action etc :O_o1:)
I want a government who has the balls to stop all this politically correctness madness. I want a government who will say NO MORE to the masses of single pregnant teens. I don't want a government who tries to take from 1 hand to give to the other while trying to please EVERYONE.
Is this too much to ask?
there are only a finite amount of good ideas, and to think that sharing them for the good of the country and therefore risking ever getting into power at all is never gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Besides, to make ONE descision work you have to make other changes and the whole must float or sink. So stating them all is irrelevent becase you have to implement other changes to make it all turn.
Nick who?Quote:
Originally Posted by MaddAussie
I'll be voting "anyone but labour" too - along with 99% of the people who bother to turn up for voting.
I won't miss GB - the man's a fool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitzen
Not a chance!!! I'm fed up with Labour and I don't care who is running that party, nothing will change that view. And i'm not the only one with that view!
People go on about how Cameron hasn't got this 'walk the walk' rubbish but did Blair have it in 1997??? No! If anything he was fresh faced and in the same position as Cameron.
I am not single. I have a wife and 2 children. Being single is your choice so that isnt the issue. The fact is, i pay towards single people and families the same as you do, and paying the higher bracket of tax, i put ALOT into the system. FAR more than i get out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee @ SCAN
I realise your argument (i think) is aimed at single parents/pregnant teenagers though.
Also, as far as your dustbins go, and we all have this issue (and other things along that vein), that is down to local government. It doesnt make that much difference if its a Labour/Tory/Lib:censored:Dem local authority. They will still stiff you over on services and charge a fortune in council tax (which incidentally, single people get a 25% reduction for)
whoever you vote for, the economy will be going down and neither party will know what to do
Why do you think I support the Tories? At best, it's more like I despise them a bit less than I despise the others, but they're all politicians and, as a group, I have a low opinion of the lot of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitzen
Given that they haven't said much substantive, and that they did say they weren't going to say much substantive, we won't know the answer to that until they do start setting out their stall. Until then, who knows?Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitzen
But bear in mind, Labour now is VERY different from Labour of a few decades ago, and the Tories running the party now aren't the same people that were running it in years past. If Labour can reinvent themselves to win elections, so can the Tories.
Very probably, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitzen
Could well be. I'm not sure yet, but I wouldn't dismiss that possibility. I think I said as much in the last post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitzen
I'm not so sure of that. If they had a credible alternative, my reading of it is that they'd already be re-sheathing the bloody knives, and that Brown would already be consigned to the dustbin of political history.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitzen
But Labour's problem is neatly summed up with .... If not Brown, then who?
If they come up with a credible answer to that that they think they can sell to the electorate, then Brown had better start keeping walls between his back and his "colleagues" .... or invest in an extra-strength set of political stab-proof body-armour. ;)
Black!! Like the endless blackness of space... which leads to the Chasm of Clams.....Quote:
Originally Posted by directhex
they tap at my window..with tiny poles!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Tumble
now this is interesting, the hot potato that is the economy.
I started to work in a trading bank as an engineer, someone who was meant to be fully mathematically literate, who knew nothing of the idea of modern economics, but was a real wizz when it came to software development.
They taught me many concepts, but at the begining one basic premise that fundementally NO ONE, can understand completely the market. The classic example everyone always gives is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Te...tal_Management LTCM was a company set up by a nobel price winning mathematition turned economist. Mr scholes no one could deny was a genious, with an amazing understanding of options, he was one of the three people who figured out the defacto way of pricing options. Point is LTCM the fund set up with his ideas crashed amazingly (he actually did this twice....)
So we have this idea that no one can understand the market, wanna know something worse? No one really can prove the value of simple option, a contractual agrement that gives the holder the right, but not the obligation to buy a stock at a pre-determined price. When the method that we use day in day out we all know to be fundementally flawed you have to be a moron to claim to be some kind of genious who understands it all, even gordon b never was that arogant.
Now for the blame game, those who blame it on maggies actions 20 years ago, well your just stupid, yes if she had never re-defined the UK economy we probably wouldn't be in this state, but we could easily (and i belive) be in a worse one.
What's a problem is the lack of savings that have been made for this nation, the sun shined and we made no hay. Thats an in-excusible sin. When NL came to power, the economy was actually in pretty good shape, when we look at the non government metrics of inflation, Adult Population Size - Employed people (notice i'm NOT calling this un-employment, because thats a different metric, yes to cut un-employment it was simply re-defined.... its fun this lark isn't it!). Then look at it 6 months before, and 6 months after. It has a clear postative direciton.
What we can say for sure, and we do know is that the UK is going to face problems that many people don't seam to understand or care about, too many people see bankers getting big bonuses and get a bit of schandenfreude when they see them been hurt. Well the FTSE has sneezed, LIBOR has shot up, and believe me all of us will be catching a cold. Why?
Lets have a look at some basic commods, Sugar and Brent Crude Sweet (Oil, the expensive easy to refine kind). Look how high the price of them is, whilst oil is likely to continue to have high volatility (move up and down a lot) its still far more expensive than it was 5 years ago. Its unlikely this is going to change unless more refineray capacity is found.
What i'm getting at is the basic cost of living is going to be going up, everything we take for granted, and have been often forgetting is the most important thing we buy each month, will suddenly become apparent. Now it gets worse. Many of us, have been splurging on credit, I always belived you're credit card limit was what you earnt in a month, its what i was told when i first took one out. How come 5 years later i'm in posession of £19k word of instant credit, vast majority could be intrest free, the rest 14.9% APR. I'm expecting that to be closer to 9k this time next year (despite my wage going up).
My point is people will be spending less on the non-essentails that our country relies on. The debt people have will cost more to pay off. People won't be getting more debt. Essentails will cost more.
As such this will ***k EVERYONE. Now combine this with often questionable off-sheet borrowing techniques of the government, this makes it very hard to know quite how much they are in debt. Without getting into the concepts of Rho, the rise in LIBOR is going to hit government departments and whats really worrying is no one knows too how much?
Now this is why i have respect for Cameron, because he isn't so stupid as to say "oh its easy to fix it", "we'll cut taxes". Instead he says things like "Sound Money" and express a desire to lower taxes, without violating the idea of Sound Money.
Actions like that are systematic of someone who understands that they cant push the magic fix the economy button, but take steps to minimize the risk to the british tax payer. What else can you ask of someone?
And in 10 years, everyone will be voting 'anyone but the Tories' (probably meaning Labour) after holding them accountable for everything that goes wrong in that time. How I love two party politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by dangel
No, I won't bother to vote. There isn't a tick box for 'none of the above'
I don't know about anyone else but in the last 24 hours most of the discussion was all on the US Treasurys bail out plan in the media. That was thing that was going to effect everyone and thus grabbed people's attention and headlines.
Obama-mccain race, the Cameron speech were irrelevant compared to that.
Well, that's what spoiling your ballot paper is for - it tells them that you bother, yet don't think any of the choices are valid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Konan555
Would they be angry if I did it with a glitter pen?Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Only if its a 'pc' glitter pen that does not offend anyone else!Quote:
Originally Posted by Konan555
I know someone who attends every time and writes "liar" in every box :DQuote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Wonder if that counts as being spoilt? :laugh: