Originally Posted by santa claus
Anyone and everyone is a better option than labour in most peoples opinions at the moment, don't seem so suprised that were all going against your opinion. Were entitled to ours after all.
Mandys had to resign a number of times for his actions in government, he shouldn't be there and certainly shouldn't have got a third chance
I hope that the BNP are classified as 'no one' then
Anyone and everyone, with a few exceptionsI hope that the BNP are classified as 'no one' then
BNP are one of the few worse than labour.
If only Lord M had been able to elaborate on his statement so quickly, the 'sensational' premise that began today's interview would not have existed.Anyone and everyone, with a few exceptions
BNP are one of the few worse than labour.
It's far easier to ask questions than it is to provide answers. Governments of whatever colour have to find those answers and it can't be productive beating them over the head all the time with irrelevancies. Btw, fiddling expenses is wrong; it insults the taxpayer. Is it a fiddle to pay an enormous salary to someone who just asks questions when it is the taxpayer that foots the bill through the licence fee?
I want to hear how the Government of the day will handle the issues of the day; if the media persist with its 'Katie and Peter' mentality we're never going to find out what's really going on at Westminster.
I do respect your opinion incidentally.
Leaders should have to earn trust. Brown and Blair got it handed to them on a platter, and look what they did with it!
Yes, the economic crisis is wider than just the UK, but to say that (as most government spokespeople do) as if it means that they have nothing to do with it is a pure and simple cop-out. Either the Chancellor was running the economy, in which case he has a major role in the screw up..... no, make that the major role in the screw up .... or he wasn't running the economy, in which case, what the hell was he doing for 10 years as Chancellor?
And, in his own hubristic words, he's "prudence" embodied. Well, clearly not.
Brown can't have it both ways. He was only to happy to primp and preen when he thought everything was going great, and to pontificate about prudence and abolishing boom and bust, but now that it's blown up in his face, all of a sudden it's a "worldwide" crisis, as if we're just innocent victims, bystanders that got caught up in it. Well, piffle and tosh. Brown personally made many of the decisions that led directly to this state of affairs, and ignored all the warnings when people told him what was brewing. For instance, Vince Cable. I'm not a fan of the LibDems, but when a historian (specialising in Labour Party history, I might add) is given warnings on economics by an economist, he's on dodgy ground just dismissing them as Brown did. And Cable's qualifications to have an opinion on economics? Oh yeah, an economics degree from Cambridge, an economics PhD from Glasgow and a period spent lecturing in economics at the LSE. Well, obviously, studying Labour party history means you know more about economics than an economist.
And the pompous pillock seems to think that his raging long-term incompetence is justification for why we should trust him to sort out the mess he was in large part responsible for!
The problem is not that we need to learn to trust our leaders. The problem is that it took the public too long to learn we can't trust them, or at least, can't trust that one. But learn we have. Look back at the opinions the public have expressed at every chance they've had recently. Disastrous by-election results, for a start. With a brief blip or two, a long series of dire opinion polls. Really bad local election results at the last occasion, but results which have come to look positively glowing compared to the clobbering Labour have received tonight.
Let's have a quick look at the highlights :-
You can't dismiss all this as just the results of a media offensive. Nor, much as many Labour politicians would like to have us believe, can it all be put down to the expenses row. Yeah, that didn't help, but if it was just expenses, the Tories would have been a lot more badly affected than they were. So far, their vote has gone up not down, and their seats certainly have.[*]Labour beaten into sixth place in Cornwall.
[*]Labour beaten into 5th place in the South East
[*]Labour vote collapsing so badly in the North East that the BNP's Nick Griffin got elected, despite the BNP vote actually dropping since last time
[*]Labour beaten into 2nd place by the Tories..... in Wales. I mean, in Wales?? Keir Hardie (yes, I know he's Scottish), Nye Bevan, Clement Attlee et. al. must be positively spinning in their graves over that).
[*]So far, with a couple of UK regions still to go, Labour has managed to end up 3rd overall, beaten by UKIP !!
The public aren't totally stupid. They don't trust Brown, and they don't trust him for several reasons. Firstly, a lot are realising just how deceitful many of his policies were. For a start, it was Brown that decided to raid pension funds, and with his removed of ACT relief on first getting into office, just about single-handedly triggered the end of final value pension funds and screwed over so many people's futures. Then there's been a series of stealth taxes. Oh, and of course, Brown's monumental cockup with the 10p tax band. Either he didn't know how what he was doing would affect people, including many of the poorest, in which case he's incompetent. Or he did know, but did it anyway. I'm not sure which is worse. But I do know people did not like it, and moreover, didn't like the way he refused again and again to admit any fault in that.
And that is why people don't trust him. He's sly, devious, underhand and deceitful in the way he executes policy. You can cover a turd in icing, plonk a cherry on top, wrap it up in pretty giftwrap and tie a pink bow round it, but when you give it to someone as a gift, it's still a turd. And that's what so many of his policies have been over the years .... artfully presented turds.
Trust him? You gotta be kidding. If I shook hands with the bloke (which, I might add, isn't terribly likely, especially if I saw him coming), I'd count my fingers afterwards.
Not only has he not done anything to earn our trust, he's done far too many things to destroy it.
Still, it's interesting to see his Cabinet colleagues backing him. I'm going to be watching how that plays out with great interest, because I think it's a honking great political miscalculation.
Why? Think about it. Why does Cameron and the Tory party keep calling for an general election? Because they think they're on to a good thing either way. One way is if they get one. Right now, it looks pretty certain Labour would be destroyed in a general election. So, if Brown called one, Cameron is very likely to end up as PM.
But the call for one is double-edged. What is most likely to make Brown dig in and refuse to call one? Yup, repeated calls for one from the Tories. Remember Brown's absolute refusal to admit mistakes, to admit any fault at all. even over MPs expenses, it took a week of nuclear revelations and some grossly offensive stuff about his own party before he finally succumbed and gave a sort-of apology on behalf of all MPs. So Cameron continuously prodding him and calling for an election pretty much guarantees Brown will dig his heels in, refuse to call one and resist any attempt to replace him. Instead, he rounds up the most likely leadership contenders and locks then into his cabinet, effectively neutralising them as opponents, because they'd destroy their credibility if they stood against him now, unless Brown goes voluntarily. And so, Cameron avoids the worst-case scenario .... Labour getting rid of Brown and putting someone more credible and less tainted in in his place, and then calling an election.
I think Cameron has manipulated not just Brown, but the whole Labour cabinet, into doing exactly what he wants them to do, with the beauty of the trick being that if it fails and Brown goes, Cameron gets his election and, in all probability, a new and famous home address.
And they're all jockeying for political advantage. Brown and his crew and fighting for survival in power, and Cameron and his crew are manipulating trying to gain power.
Learn to trust our leaders? Oh, give me a break.
You detest Gordon Brown. You're not a fan of the LibDems. You are horrified by the BNP. You don't seem to be a fan of the Conservatives. Are you waiting for a new Fuhrer? As you've said yourself before, be careful what you wish for.
We all know how capably and expressively you can write but it needs to be going somewhere. Taking everything into account - your mistrust of the current leadership, the expenses row, that the potentially new Government appear to be 'equally' manipulative as the present, it begs the question: so where do we go from here?
The American economy has had trillion$ pumped into it; Europe is in the same situation. If Gordon is responsible for all that, he must have a bike. I think he must be tipping over the bins in our road too the sod.
Andrew Marr had questions. Everyone seems to have questions. Anyone got any answers?.
Yes! Scrap the lot of them and make me Galactic Emperor. I'll sort this bloody place out once and for all, I can tell you.Anyone got any answers?
Wouldn't it just be super brilliant if maggie was still in the game?
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
That's quite a promise Emperor Ming. Exactly how will you do it (apart from ritual annihilation)?
Maggie may not have been a leader to everyone's taste, but she was indeed a leader.
There's no immutable law of nature that says there has to be a political party worth supporting. And I'm not convinced there is.You detest Gordon Brown. You're not a fan of the LibDems. You are horrified by the BNP. You don't seem to be a fan of the Conservatives. Are you waiting for a new Fuhrer? As you've said yourself before, be careful what you wish for.
We all know how capably and expressively you can write but it needs to be going somewhere. Taking everything into account - your mistrust of the current leadership, the expenses row, that the potentially new Government appear to be 'equally' manipulative as the present, it begs the question: so where do we go from here?
The American economy has had trillion$ pumped into it; Europe is in the same situation. If Gordon is responsible for all that, he must have a bike. I think he must be tipping over the bins in our road too the sod.
Andrew Marr had questions. Everyone seems to have questions. Anyone got any answers?
Nor, in my opinion, is electing a party once every five years or so, from an effective choice of two, "democracy". And, the people having spoken and elected one or the other, they then feel quite comfortable in ignoring us and doing whatever the hell they feel like.
I'll give a couple of examples of that. First, the Iraq war. It was clear from the level of protest that there was a large body of public opinion that did not want the Iraq war. Did the government listen? Did they hell. Instead, their level of concern about public opinion led top the flim-flam job that was the dodgy dossier, and what appears to be aq campaign of dirty tricks that we still haven't gotten to the bottom of.
Then there's how Brown got the top job ... by internal party politicking. nobody would stand against him because of fear of the McBride effect, and that still holds true. So Brown gets himself anointed, without bothering to get mandate from the people, and proceeds to announce that he's going to change direction and usher in a new era. Well, if he;s going to change direction from the direction Labour were elected, he damn well ought to go to the people to get a mandate to do it., But would he? No. And that's part of the current problem - he doesn't have the electoral credibility, such as it is given our loaded system, to govern.
I've seen Minister after Minister dismiss the local and Euro elections as being a "referendum" on the expenses scandal. Well, I'd say it not that simple, There's an element of that, but if they think that's all it is, they aren't talking to people. It's at least as much a referendum on Labour, what they've done recently and Gordon Brown as it is on expenses. And there's the supreme arrogance. If it's a referendum on these matters, then to carry on with Brown in power and without an election is to ignore what the people have been saying.
And it's not as if we haven't been saying it clearly, loudly and in numerous ways. We had the last round of local elections when Labour got trounced. They dismissed that as an aberration. There's been poll after poll after poll. They dismiss those as not having democratic legitimacy ... and to a point, they're right. But when you get enough polls all saying the same thing. Then there's a by-election and labour do disastrously. That's dismissed as a one-off, and influenced by "local issues", which loses credibility when you get a couple more. And then we get a round of atrocious local elections, followed by a stunningly bad set of Euro elections.
For how much longer will Labour and Brown ignore what the people are clearly saying, and still maintain it's "democracy".
And that brings me back to my first point - there's no natural law that says we have to support one party of another. Like being dragged out by a murderous lynch mob and being asked if you want to be hung or strangled, it;s not a situation in which there's necessarily a choice you'd make.
Yes, I detest Brown. He pompous and arrogant, but far worse, he spend years telling us he was doing such a good job of running the economy when it fact, it was more apt to say he was doing a good job of ruining it. He personally made the decisions that put in place the institutions that led to the banking collapse and removed some of the old checks and balances (though the Tories removed some too) that put a brake on excesses. Yet Labour ministers are still saying how he's the best person to sort out the economy because he understands it. The hell he does. He personally wrecked the pensions industry, largely with his reforms of ACT. His private financing initiatives have saddled the country, and future generations, with vast amounts of debt that are off balance sheet. And remember those vast debt figures they owned up to in the last budget? Well, they don;t include the off balance sheet stuff. The true situation is worse than it looks, because so much of it has been done through long-term commitments to inefficient operating contracts.
And, as you point out, I'm not a fan of the LibDems either. Partly, it's because they have a number of policies I simply don't like, and partly, it's because they say different things in different parts of the country out of what appears to be a kind of transitory expediency.
And no, I'm not convinced by the Tories either. I am convinced that the vast majority of politicians are primarily motivated by getting in office, and once that's done, by getting in to power. It's not about conviction politics, where people had beliefs, explained them and if you agreed, you voted for them. It's about then saying what they think people want to hear, or about avoiding saying very much of anything at all, on the basis that if you don't take a position on anything, it can't be used to hold you to account.
The time was, and it wasn't that long ago, that people had beliefs and fought for what they believed in. Political office was the method used to achieve that. Now, political office is the objective, and policies the tool used to achieve it. As soon as a policy looks to be a liability, dump it.
When parties had principles, and we all knew what those principle were, then party politics may have made some sense, because we knew what we were voting for when we voted for a party.
But Santa, I'm not convinced by the Tories because I'm far from sure what principles they stand for. Cameron is certainly a glib and plausible speaker. He's far better at presentation that Brown, and may be as good as Blair. In some ways, he may be better than Blair .... such as that unscripted hour long conference speech of his. That was an impressive performance. But ... beyond the glib presenter, is there any real substance? Or is he just a slick advertising and PR man. As with all professional politicians, I'm not convinced there's much more to him. And there's certainly a marked lack of detail in many Tory policies and I can't detect any overall guiding principles at all.
So no, I'm not convinced by the Tories.
You say you want answers. If I had those, maybe I would be running for office myself. But I don't need to have answers to find the limited set of options we're presented with as being totally lacking in credibility. And no party can't expect to get my unrestricted approval simply because I can't find a better option.
Besides which, even if I did have some answers (and who knows, maybe I do have some ideas) , it doesn't matter much because neither Brown nor Cameron are exactly going to be beating their way to my door to benefit from the guiding light of my wisdom. Having answers doesn't mean you'd get to use them.
Andthat's why I challenged you on
And I'll do so again.Well, the economic crisis is wider that just the UK and we have to (learn to) trust our leaders (with good reason) I'm afraid.
Why?
Why do we have to learn to trust our leaders?
Why should we?
If they do things to earn that trust, then earn it they will. But just what have ANY of them done recently to deserve, let alone earn, much in the way of trust?
AledJ (09-06-2009)
Saracen made a very good point about Brown not having the electoral credibility!!! How can you trust a 'leader' that you have no voted for?!?!?!?!
As for not being responsible for the economic crisis I agree to a small extent this was not all down to Brown!!!!! BUT he had a big part to play for the situation this country now finds itself in!! Anyone remember the gold reserves he sold off at the lowest point??? Think the price was £255 a bar or whatever it is. Today its over £900. The pension raid- i'm too young to have been hit by it but my parents are not. Up until Brown raided the pension pot my parents would have had a decent pot for retirement. It would have been enough to live comfortably. And now.....................well lets say both of them will be working longer than they had planned too.
As Saracen pointed out the Tories did relax the safety nets around risky banking but Brown fuelled the problem by allowing even more relaxation.
Its Labour who have made me extremely sceptical of the whole EU circus. The Human Rights Act, treatys with no nation vote, constitution dressed up as treaty's, the sheer readiness to sell off power to the EU, and inability to stand up for Britain!
And as for the first post santa claus- Are you seriously asking me to trust a man who has quit the government numerous times because of his f*** up's, let alone trust a government who then gave him even more power than before?????? Give me a break!! I'm soon to start my LPC (Legal practice course) so I can go on and train as a solicitor. Now if I was a solicitor and broke the rule governing that profession, and was then banned from practising again there is no way i would get a second chance? And that's another thing people are fed up of seeing the government (and the political field at large) operate on a different level, hell even in a different reality!!!!!
Saracen makes a very good point about the fact that we should question our leaders instead of trusting them 100% Yes, we may vote them into power but they are there for us, and as such we have a right to question their actions!!!!
Currently Brown is just digging Labour's hole even deeper by the hour!!! The fact he can not gauge the public anger not only over the expenses, but over his policies and the calls for change!! Saying that even putting a new leader in would do nothing at all!!! Labour will be out of power for a long time!!
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Please excuse any grammatical/spelling errors but as its 03.44 am and i'm on the grave yard shift, i'm not as alert lol
And getting back to the OP...
Lord M:
Chief spin doctor.
Twice resigned over apparent issues of corruption.
Given a life peerage by the PM.
Unelected deputy prime minister.
Great job.
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pollaxe (09-06-2009)
And just what's wrong with ritual annihilation? Hmm? Hmmm? You sound like you might be a malcontent, you're going on The List...
I'll first begin by fitting out a fleet of anti-cyclist Zeppelins...
Let's cut to the chase: Labour will win the next general election.
Received thanks from: pollaxe (Today); AledJ (Yesterday); Saracen (Tomorrow); Salazaar (Never)
Salazaar (09-06-2009)
there comes a point in everyones life when they realise santa claus isn't for real.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
<fingers-in-ears>lala-lala-laaa</fingers-in-ears>
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(='.'=)
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santa claus (09-06-2009)
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