2008: The Brown rollercoaster
He didn't quite say we have nothing to fear but fear itself but Gordon Brown is increasingly adopting the tone and language of a war time leader.
Today he spoke of a "can do attitude" and "a fighting spirit". Tellingly, he declared that Britain had been the "victim" of the economic downturn which, as no doubt you recall by now, he says came from abroad.
As forecasters line up to compete to tell us just how gloomy and miserable 2009 will be, the PM is trying to stay resolutely upbeat and looks more relaxed than ever.
In comparison, at his news conference exactly a year ago, he looked rattled and defensive when facing questions about his alleged dithering over the future of Northern Rock, the loss of the names and addresses of millions of child benefit claimants and another party funding scandal.
The opinion polls tell the story of the Brown rollercoaster - up and up went the Tory lead. In the past three months it's gone down and down until now the two parties stand roughly where they did 12 months ago.
The big difference is that now the momentum is with him, not his opponents - so much so that today he had to insist that he was not even thinking about an early election.
If this goes on, we political commentators may start to suggest that what a failing leader really needs to rescue them is a massive economic crisis.
But then, the next 12 months look like being as unpredictable as the last 12.
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Am I the only one who finds it increasingly distasteful to see Gordon Brown's ever-widening smile as this crisis develops?
His stature may be rising in some people's opinions, but for the rest of us about to lose our jobs and potentially our homes, I know how I feel about him, and it ain't printable here, Nick.
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When you see France Telecomm's just reported losing all 3 submarine cables to India used by the online shopping support systems virtually simultaneously, and they won't be back up until Christmas, he might be right. It's called economic warfare, which may be the next field of combat after guerrilla and terrorist tactics failed.
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Sounding like a war leader? Chamberlain or Churchill?
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"It's all someone else's fault, we didn't do it, we couldn't have seen it coming, we're here for you."
This just goes to prove that if you repeat something often enough, the electorate will believe you.
A sympathetic propaganda relay station like the BBC doesn't hurt your chances, either.
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What complete and utter tosh!
We may well be the victims, but Gordon was the perpetrator.
I'm not surprised he's smiling. He's not going to suffer because of the recession (NOT downturn), but the rest of us will.
...and as for your likening him to a war time leader; Sir, that is a terminological inexactitude.
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Gordon Brown also stated that what with cheaper oil and food prices, people would start to feel better off. Clearly the man hasn't been shopping recently or he would realise that this is simply not the case.
Also, the pound's continued weakness against other currencies, especially the euro, will surely cause food prices to rise in the coming weeks and months
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Strong rumours on political betting.com that yougov have tories on 7% lead. Sort of blows this out, if correct. Good comment on there from one of the contributors
"Is this a case of premature adulation, by Nick," time will tell.
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Mr Brown should be careful not to get to excited as most people suffer from the credit crunch they may like to take issue with someone who all of a sudden seems to have found his political motivation when before this crisis he had none. What has he actually done we all no what happens when you prop something up like a bad marriage its doomed no matter what you do. The economy looks very bad.
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Does, Brown think that if he keeps repeating the mantra
"The economic downturn is imported "we will ALL eventually believe him??
Nick do you believe that if YOU keep extolling Brown we ALL eventually believe you ??
Hmm it appears so
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I'm really sick of Labour's line of the economic climate being 'out of our control'. This crisis would not be anywhere near as serious if a)individual debts has not been allowed to reach 3 times GDP and b)money had not been wasted on stupid ideas like tax credits where it would have been cheaper just to cut the basic rate of income tax and save a lot of uneccessary admin.
Brown's attitude reminds me of the man who went to MacDonalds, spilt coffee on himself and sued them because it didn't have a label saying 'hot'.
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Interesting that you include the loss of Child Benefits data amongst your quick review of problems about which GB had to face questions a year or so back.
Even more interesting that the responsibility for more recent losses of personal data by Government agencies or departments, (of which there have been several), hasn't been laid at the door of Number 10 at all - so why is that?
If he was 'presiding over a shambles' then, why wasn't he 'presiding over a shambles' again more recently.
That the press agenda can just move on in this way surely exposes a lack of substance in the first place, yet there was no telling to the media at the time. There was a whiff of blood and only a brave man would have stood in the way of the media pack in their headlong rush for GB's jugular vein.
Come on Nick, were you right then or are you right now?
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I'm sure that Crash doesn't need anyone else bigging him up
Maybe his confidence is just superficial because he knows that whatever he does will have no effect.
He's almost survived until January, and then the banks discover if he'll deliver on his promises of funding
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Just for those who haven?t been paying attention. Mandy is back. Campbell is ?advising?. So under those circumstances, its hardly surprising that there?s a media narrative of ?Brown?s having a good recession? and ?Labour more trusted on the economy?. However, as reality departs from the land of spin, as people lose their jobs and have a sh*t recession, that?s going to be both sickening and terribly hard to believe?
Who isn't repulsed by seeing him grinning in every photo while we, the people, fight for our jobs, salaries and homes?
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"He didn't quite say we have nothing to fear but fear itself but Gordon Brown is increasingly adopting the tone and language of a war time leader."
I think a quick history lesson might be in order here. When FDR said that, he wasn't a war time leader. He was referring to the Great Depression - so it would probably be apt to use it at this point.
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If Crash Gordon is now seeing himself in these terms, it only confirms the degree to which he has lost contact with reality. And with his underlings required to sing along to the same tune as "the Great Leader", no matter what they believe in private, it is more a case of lemmings heading over the cliff than troops advancing into battle. You say that GB appears ever more relaxed. What, pray, does that tell us about him? That here is a man to whom self-interest matters more than the state of his country and who sees the global economic crisis as a God-sent opportunity to save his political skin! What hubris -- and what tragedy.
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Amazing, when things were rosey, it was all down to him and Prudence.
Now it's all gone belly up, and Prudence has been shot dead, it's everyone elses fault.
Sound's like a few managers i've come across in the past.
Let's face it, he's like a lame horse in the satble awaiting for his owner to make decision.
The British electorate could save him some pain and make the decisions now..............Let's put him out of his misery.
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I watched this press conference. A very dull boring performance by a pan faced man in an ill fitting suit (as usual) who gave a very lack lustre performance, side stepping near 100% of the questions asked. I would have got more excited if I was watching paint dry instead.
Was your question at the end written for you Nick by the Govt press machine? The PM seemed to know exactly what was coming and had his answered prepared - well, more of political grandstanding than an answer.
If this is leadership Gord help us. If I was going over the top with him in charge I would much prefer to be led by Baldrick -at least he would have a cunning plan.
I cannot see how you say the momentum is with the PM. The wheels are coming off all across this country big time and everything Brown has done so far has come to nought. All that has happened it that he has spent huge amounts of money, to cover up his failed policies, that allowed this country to run up an unimaginable amount of debt. All of which has to be paid back. Repaying it will be the cause of another downturn immediatley after we are getting back on our feet.
If the PM was not wallowing so much in this recession, people may, just maybe, feel a bit more confident in themselves and would not be battening down the hatches so much - fearing for the worst.
People are bombarded by news all day long and I think if this Govt and those in the business world choose their words a little bit more carefully - then the economy in this country would not be nose diving like it is.
Interesting times ahead. When we have nearly 3 million unemployed and umpteen companies and small businesses going bust lets just see who they see as their saviour then.
I still think Cameron has the best policy, going for the long term solution not short term pain relief.
This short term attitude seems to be the problem with Labour during the last decade. They come up with a policy or idea; but never think things through and never seem to consider the consequences of their actions. Everything they do is designed for quick sound bits and good headlines. Invariably their policies fall apart and they are forced into embarassing u turns.
I think they will come to regret the 2 1/2% vat cut. That was pointless and caused more aggrevation than good to retailers.
Oh well as you say we have 2009 to look forward - another press conference another time.
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He reminds me of a wartime leader all right.
General Custer.
Indians? What Indians?
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I cant think of any other politician more distasteful than Brown.
How he can say that Britain is a 'victim' in this recession is one of the biggest lies ever told since 1066. He ruined the golden legacy handed to him by Ken Clarke!
New Labours only policy left is if we keep telling the same lie often enough than eventually people will believe it.
Of-course the BBC lefties then take over with the pro-labour propaganda whilst this great country is destroyed! Disgraceful!
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The Brown Broadcasting Corporation!
I used to think it a little unfair when people mentioned the Blair Broadcasting Corporation but no longer.
Brown is deluded - sadly he has hoodwinked a lot of people into believing he is in charge of the situation.
Nero and fiddling come to mind...
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At 6:49pm on 19 Dec 2008, heraldicus wrote:
"Sounding like a war leader? Chamberlain or Churchill?"
More like Saddam Hussein??!!
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Cameron said this today;
"When the financial crisis happened, I made it clear that the Conservative Party was ready to put aside party differences to help bring stability. That's why we supported the recapitalisation of our banks.
I also said that we would not suspend our critical faculties over this Government's calamitous economic policy decisions - decisions that helped not only cause this crisis by encouraging government and personal debt to spiral out of control, but could also make the recession deeper and last longer.
That's why we have set out a positive alternative, starting with immediate action to tackle the credit problems at the heart of the issue.
It's clear the recapitalisation is failing to restart lending to the real economy, so we've proposed a National Loan Guarantee Scheme to underwrite loans to businesses.
It is vital that this £50bn proposal - which has been welcomed by the business community - is taken forward by the Government right now.
I can't promise it will save the world, but the sooner the Government swallows its pride the sooner we can get credit flowing again, and help Britain's struggling businesses.
Conservatives have always understood and supported businesses, we know what they need to prosper.
We also recognise that they make a difference not just by creating wealth, offering employment, and paying taxes to fund public services, but by making their money in a moral way, treating their employees right, strengthening communities, and playing a positive part in society.
So we don't see the financial crisis as an excuse to bash capitalism, we see it as a challenge to make it work better in the future.
As well as better regulation we need to reinforce the values of trust, integrity and responsibility - with strong institutions, and incentives to do the right thing.
And just as importantly the Government should lead by being as prudent with the public finances as we expect banks to be with private finances, and by being as moral and responsible with the public purse as we expect business to be with consumers' cash.
That's what a Conservative Government would do. Let's hope we get a chance to have one in the coming year."
I don't regard these words as those of a 'failing leader'. Rather they seem to come from someone who has more to offer than the man whose mantra, only a few weeks ago, was that the UK was in better shape than most countries to overcome the economic downturn.
I suspect that this blog's author doesn't read the comments any more - not sure why he's blogging really. It only makes sense to blog if there is a genuine dialogue with the public. So Nick, what's wrong with the Cameron view? Why not confound us all and tell us what we've got wrong?
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Brown is looking relaxed and happy because things are going his way He has ruined the economy taxed us all HEAVILY and lowered VAT 2.5% having a meaningless effect but lumbering us with huge debt and making the leap to 21% acceptable when the EU takes its constitution..
Brown is a hero of the EU well on course to join the euro and revelling in the fact no one has spotted what he's up to.
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I have lost my Job already and a victim of Gordon Brown's dreadful economic record.
He has done nothing to help those people who have lost their jobs already and in the next few months others will discover that LABOUR IS THE DELIVER NOTHING PARTY.
They have had 11 years in power and have failed on everything and now ruined the economy.
The UK is not a victim of the world slow done but Gordon Brown's policies.
The only thing manufactured in this country in recent years is Gordon Brown's recession for which I have paid the price. The recovery only starts when Gordon Brown loses his job!
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War time leader ?! More like war time criminal, have you already forgotten Iraq? We all know that the delay into the enquiry that was due once the troops were pulled out will be further postponed past the next elections, or rather delayed until Labour are removed and can no longer block it.
Let us also not forgot that it is was under Gordon Browns stewardship that we have been led into the financial crisis (in his role as Chancellor and now PM), perhaps not solely his fault, but we are in a far worse situation than most major nations.
To be honest, I have to agree that GB does remind me of a war time leader. He guided this nation into massive debt and his remedy is more debt. Surely when you suggest war time leader you were thinking then of General Haig who lost 60,000 troops on the first day of the battle of the Somme and instead of learning from that continued until we had lost 600,000...?
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The recent unemployment figures were only the tip of the iceberg and the next quarters results ( to Jan 2009 ) will be truly horrendous.
We have seen some coverage of better than expected high street sales & consumer confidence but remember this... the depth of discounting in the market is huge at the moment, yes retailers are bringing in more cash but at what cost ? I'd love to see what the discounting is doing to their margins...
I heard one Labour mouthpiece on the radio today trying to justify helping Jaguar/Land Rover and saying that the biggest help would be to back the finance companies offering loans to purchase the cars. Now, I'm sorry if I missed the queues, but who on earth is lining up to spend 20K+ on a new car at the minute?
One more thing, I have seen figures published showing that the amount of corporate bonds due for repayment in 2009 is 4 times greater than that of 2008 - so if companies are finding it difficult to get bank money now to re finance next year looks to be a bloodbath.
Thanks Gordon
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Nick should not be attacked for pointing out the political realities that are unfavourable to those not of the NuLab clan.
The BBC has its fellow travellers, Sian Lloyd for example, but Nick is just emphasising how much advantage the incumbent has rather than exhibiting bias.
That said, Brown is, and always will be, the villain of this piece. John Major summed it up best, when he said that, after the house has been ransacked, you do not employ the burglar who did it to fit new locks.
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Recession! what Recession!! doing to do wiv me guv, its all those pesky foreigners fault, but don't worry 'Super Gord' is on the case, the fruit and nut case...book your summer holidays now, as all talk of recession will be gone, let the good times roll....but don't forget to save all those nice Euros now, as the nasty £ will have sunk by then.... well, Cameron will have obviously talked it down by then....
Anyone wanna nominate our Gordy for 'GOD' for 2009.... did I hear a second from you Nick?
*whistles to the tune of Manilow's 'Mandy' as I walk off into the sunset.....*
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People are losing jobs and getting their P45s left, right & centre - myself including - but this shameless PM clings on to his job, safe in the belief that he can hold on to it by as much as he can delay the elections. All the BBC can do is marvel about how he's got a second political lifeline of sorts while the rest of us are worried about how to pay the bills.
Thanks Nick, keep canvassing for him. Afterall neither you nor the PM are at the receiving end of this god awful mess in monetary terms.
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If ever anyone was looking for examples of political ignorance, all they have to do is look at the tabloid type contributions to this discussion. It does not matter where you look in the world, economic crises prevails, and yet the fools still blame a single British politician. It says more about them than it does about the Prime Minister.
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Oh I have just had a great idea, if any one gets approached with regards to an opinion poll please say Labour and Brown have done a wonderful job with the country and that yes, you will most definitely be voting for them. A swing in the opinion polls may actually convince Labour they have a chance to hold some seats and will finally call an election...
Then bye bye Brown.
Hmm, I wonder if someone has already thought of that...
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#23
I have to agree with your sentiment.
If we remember the young GB, he was over-confident that boom and bust was over.
He is once more over-confident that he has his hands on the tiller and he will land us all safey.
What will it take for him to recognise that he might have made a Titanic mistake? (Pun intended).
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we have nothing to fear but Gordon Brown himself.
This man is useless, I have nothing but utter contempt for "It". Brown is not a man but a child in an adults body - Who else could cynically write to an X factor winner but not the people who have lost family fighting wars that he has signed up to?
Brown will do anything to score party political points, even lets remeber Baby P. He is a monster - How can the BBC report some of the garbage in glowing terms about the PM who has set Britain back.
Brown is a deliver nothing leader and the labour party is a deliver nothing party.
The only thing Brown has given the British people is recession, debt and dispair.
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Oh and one last thing, if he was a war time leader we have already lost.
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#36 bravesouter
You are free to believe what you like - as we are.
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Now let me see.Our GREAT LEADER sells our Gold when its dirt cheap,are we about to see our currency go the same way?.EUROLAND is almost here.Be warned.
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We'll see how cocky he is come the budget in March when it all comes crashing down around his ears.
Look at the Golem, so happy that his country and the people in it are struggling so badly. It's shameful. The worse it gets, the happier he is. But it'll rebound on him when everyone realises that it is all largely his fault and the true state of the country becomes apparent.
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Your did not mention Churchill therefore I must assume you mean Brown is Stalin as a war time leader. This is the most "closed" Government Britain has ever had, it verges on dictatorship. We are the most watched country in the world even teachers weekend habits are now coming under scrutiny. Dependence on the state is at record proportions and propaganda from this Government happens all the time. Policies are announced to the public before being discussed in Parliament. Our democracy itself is under threat from this dreadful man and all the media can discuss is he talks like a war time leader, lets have some answers to the huge problems we face and who caused them instead.
As to the polls, I can hardly believe people would vote for Brown, in fact most women I know cannot even watch him because they find his smirking face so distasteful. However I do believe if you tell a lie often enough people will begin to believe it and lets face it, Brown tells lies all the time. He misrepresents what is said by world leaders etc and is allowed to get away with it. It must dirve the opposition to distraction, I know it does me.
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Brown can smile all he wants, but the reality is that whenever he calls the election, he'll be out on his ear. Sadly, he'll be leaving a bankrupt economy.
For all our sake's, let him go, the sooner the better!
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Brown's economic policies since 1997 have done more damage to the heart of this once-great country than any war could or has. 'Wartime' Leaders bring the country together to fight a common enemy, and this is a role he could never, ever fulfil, seeing as he and his corrupt, inept excuse for a government ARE the common enemy.
It's about time some of our so-called political analysts (yes, like you, Nick) looked behind the lies, the spin, the half-truths, and realised that just because bad news is hidden, it doesn't mean that there's no bad news!
Example: Announcement this week that there's finally a plan for withdrawing British troops from Iraq. Great. Comes the day after the announcement that MORE troops are being sent to Aghanistan. So these kids (cos that's what many of them are) are simply being sent from one war-zone to another. But Brown looks good, and tere are enough fools in this country who will fall for it.
The recent pitiful VAT cut has done nothing. The multi-billion pound bail out of the banks has done nothing to stimulate lendign and borrowing. Businesses are going to the wall, people are losing their jobs, their homes, and their self-esteem, but in the Ivory Tower that is 10 Downing Street, it's "I'm alright, Jock"...
Another dumb idea s this new one about helping to stimulate the British car industry. Ed Milliband said on the radio this morning that he wouldn't loan money to Land Rover Jaguar, but instead would make buying a new car easier. Face it, Ed, that one will not save LRJ, but it will put more of our money into the hands of German, Italian and Japanese car companies. Well done, nicely thought through.
God, this government is a shambles, and the sooner they go the better.
Bring back Oliver Cromwell - at least you knew where you stood with him, and it wasn't at the end of a long queue for petty handouts, soundbites, spin and platitudes that actually mean absolutely nothing.....
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No more boom and bust ... Hmm.
But Mandy's back, so black's white, and white's black, and it's all down to those nasty American salesmen. As Viv Nicholson said, 'spend, spend, spend'. Spend like there's no tomorrow. HMG have a credit card with no limit.
As Capt. Mainwaring might have said when asked who will pay, 'You foolish people!' (Perhaps not, we know that we are at the precipice.)
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No35 kingsrgs
I am sorry to hear that you have lost your job and hope that you find new employment quickly.
However, I think you should be aware that levels of employment are just a byproduct of a free market economy. Profit maximization is the only game in town for the capitalist class. I have attended a lot of board meetings in my time and I can assure you that the wellbeing of the workforce hardly ever gets on the agenda. Discussions on shareholder value and earnings per share usually predominate.
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"Today he spoke of a "can do attitude" "
Well, he's certainly demonstrated exactly how he can "do" the British people!
"..the PM is trying to stay resolutely upbeat and looks more relaxed than ever."
Is it just me, or does this grinning ghoul become ever more repulsive as he gloats while we all suffer the consequences of his appalling financial incompetence?
"The big difference is that now the momentum is with him... "
..preferably propelling him towards an exit via the number 10 door.
"- so much so that today he had to insist that he was not even thinking about an early election."
Yeah, sure. The only thing he's thinking is how and when he can bribe voters to get back in through said door.
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Nick,
From the reports of this he sounds utterly deluded. I've lost my job as a result of the credit crunch, been taxed up to the eyeballs, and had my pension taxed also. The thing I associate James "call me Gordon" Brown with is telling us that he's "abolished boom and bust". Can you explain why you've forgotten all about that fantastic and vain boast?
I don't believe A SINGLE WORD he says. Do you?
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I had better pass this information on to my local MP who with only a 10000 majority is running round like a headless chicken to get himself in the press.
He obviously doesnt believe either his leader or the polls....a wiseman methinks.
Which wartime leader did you have in mind Nick ??? Mussolini perhaps ???
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Gordom Brown is typical of New Labour.... he accepts no responsibility for the economic crisis that we're in.
Am I right in recalling that Tony Blair lead us to war with Iraq at the behest of God? It was nothing to do with him.
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It's all very well spouting sound bites; if you look what he has actually done it's a differant story.
Recession is like a tide, you can't turn it back and if you think you can, you are a fool in the mould of King Canute. The way to survive it is to be prepared with a good supply of cash behind you, which this government have utterly failed to do.
Brown has spent every penny this country has and will have over the next 5 years trying to turn back the tide which is going to prove futile. A prime example is the pathetic cut in vat piling more costs on small business whilst doing nothing to get people to spend - 2.5% off - wow.
The banks were one issue that did need cash but the rest of his actions (or should that be the Chanellor of the Exchequer?) will make no differance and cost us dearly long time.
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I agree with you Nick. He sounds just like Adolf did in his bunker in 1945.* He too was making plans to rebuild Germany while the Russians were at the gate. Gordon is planning to rebuild Britain and the debt collectors are at our gate.
Bob
* See dvd Der Unterfall
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Personally, I think it a huge insult to Stalin when people compare Gordon the Golem to him. Stalin was a titan of history. Gordon the Golem is more like Chernenko.
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hmm after all this time i finally got a post referred...not sure why, it cant be because i am unhappy with the BBC, could it be nick is a bit too sensitive given my observation that GB appeared prepared for his question......
but to get back on topic, it is exactly a year since the famous "end of boom and bust" speech....oh how wrong can someone be and still keep their job? He was wrong then and he continues to be wrong, which one of his measures has actually worked? not taking over failed NR, nor recapitalising the banks not his 2.5%cut in VAT to "stimulate" spending....
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Lord Mandelson clearly has the Tories worried. He has only been back a few weeks, their lead in the polls virtually wiped out and the shadow cabinet in total disarray. You have seen nothing yet. He is a real professional, and in sharp contrast to the ex-spin doctor leading the Tories whose only real job was spinning for Carlton Communications, they went bust owing millions. Norman Tebbitt recognised talent, and that was the reason he asked Peter to name his own price to run the Tory machine.
I am not aware that he has ever been charged with a criminal offence, that , once again is in sharp contrast to the two Tory crooks Lords Archer and Black both introduced into the Upper House by the spam hoarder from Grantham.
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Nick,
you may have missed it, in in your hurry to write your usual paen of praise to the prime minister, but the pound has fallen further under Brown than under Major, under Wilson, or under Ramsay MacDonald. The pound in your pocket has wasted away under the SUB-PRIME Minister. This is not a crisis "imported" from abroad. It is a home -grown crisis fed and watered by a decade's efforts of Chancellor Brown, and the foreigners are demonstrating their opinions by withdrawing their assets from the ship of state before it founders on the rocks of Brown's incompetence.
(Not that you would notice this fact in the mass of Labour propaganda published by the BBC)
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Ooooops looks like you swallowed a little too much spin Nick. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3850574/Gordon-Browns-revival-halted-in-wake-of-pre-Budget-report-poll-finds.html
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well, when all is said and done, we only have ourselves to blame.
we have not gotten angry enough at this repulsive nightmare, and we have not gotten our feelings known to him.
Anybody for a revolution?
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Anyone else noticed that less and less people are commenting on Nick's blogs?
Less people believing?
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"Sounding like a war-leader?"
Sounds like a guy who allowed the UK economy to be driven by a credit-bubble, then found some bunch even more stupid to blame for our problems.
I guess I missed the point at which the USA dictated that personal borrowing in the UK should be allowed to balloon as never before?
When the USA insisted that individuals in the UK should be offered enormous multiples of income to buy more than the current asset-value of their houses?
When the USA insisted that UK Banks should be allowed to do really stupid things, because Brown's creation - the FSA - was too pre-occupied to worry about their business models or actual liquidity?
I don't like George Dubya, but he sure as hell wasn't in charge of the UK economy. That was the Superhero - Gordon Brown.
Funny, really.
He presented himself for years as Superman - the hard man who created constant growth.
Then popped into a phone booth and came out as just a smiley nerd in a suit.
Now he attacks OPEC. For goodness sake, oil prices didn't go up because a bunch of producers demanded more. It went up because speculators who couldn't make a quick buck in the financial markets started to target oil.
I always thought Brown was an economic illiterate. Just hoped he'd hide it when he went abroad or talked to foreigners.
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Bush knew about the bad loans in 2001 He even warned about them. But then he had an idea He let in millions of immigrants and force fannie mae and freddie mac to lend them money knowing full well they wouldn't get repaid then a steady stream of bankers bought those debts making huge bonuses also knowing these were poor investments but they made millions.. When everyone was on board and the time was right the federal reserve called time in a very vocal fasion and started the credit crunch..
This meant Bush and Brown could take ownership of most of the banks In the UKs case what we own so does the EU If you control the money supply tou control capitism In effect Bush and Brown control capitlism NOW give our democracy laws and freedoms to a dictatorship they control and give them ownership of the money supply and what have you got left??
What is truly amazing is they do this in full view and like ants no one sees the bigger picture..
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He may be sounding like a war leader but its the electorate who will decide what happens once he calls the date.
We will all be wearing our tin hats in the meantime to protect ourselves from the fall out of 11 years of poor financial management by this man and the quicker he goes the better.
Everything he does goes wrong and the latest 16 billion pound PSBR deficit this month clearly demonstrates how grim it has got.
We could all see a deficit of £150 billion next year and a request by the IMF to bail us out.
As Osborne recently said Labour always messes up in the end but this time Brown has excelled in his mess up and it will take a determined Conservative Chancellor years to get us back on the straight and narrow.
Lets hope that the opinion polls trick him into going early so that he cannot do much mor damage.
regards malc
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Brown is simply an economic wartime criminal and should be tried for bringing suffering to millions.
This man is no hero. He is to the UK what Mugabe is to Zimbabwe...an utter disaster for his people.
Mugabes decisions over many years have lead that great country into the ground resulting in disease and poverty. Brown has done the same to this country but to a different degree.
We should just be grateful that we will have the opportunity to get rid of this appauling Gov't within the next 500 days.
Start the clock!
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At least Mussolini got the trains to run on time!
Perhaps Nero would be a better comparison
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if they force up the price of alcohol then i'm voting tory. if they change their minds about that i'll prob stick with labour.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
C_E_H
I do what it says on the tin.
I argue that politicians - didn't say whether Labour, Tory (or so long ago that it doesn't matter) Liberal MPs spend far too long thinking up brave new stuff, but too little time implementing real controlled change.
The fact is that the rate of legislation / regulation over the past decade has been higher than ever before. Check it out.
That's not an attack on anything other than the simplistic desire of politicians to say "I/We've passed a new Bill, so stuff will get better".
It's like me getting together with folks in the pub, going home and getting fingers on the PC, then printing out a statement that "Crime will reduce by 2011".
Lovely thought. But without some proper delivery behind it, it's as useful as a beach wind-break in a hurricane.
That's all.
If MPs took one whole year to pick through and discard the crass stuff that has never been implemented, we as citizens would have a bit more chance to know exactly what laws we may be breaking by accident.
(By the way. I read all of Darling's stuff in the PBR. I still think that reducing VAT by 2.5percent, with a promise to re-instate it later, makes no economic sense. Still say that, had he chosen to adjust VAT by a bigger margin on energy supply, it would have made a much bigger impact for the people who were deprived of a 10p tax-band.)
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I guess that, in a way, Nick's right.
Back to the wall, defending the nation, is always hard work, but sounds good if stated often enough.
But at least now, Brown has Lord Mandy Goebbels back on board.
Brown's an historian. So I guess he will remember that it all ended badly.
Just can't imagine him ending it all, by calling an election.
Courage is something he simply writes about.
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#64 strongholdbarricades
Recession is biting unfortunately
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This is a deliberate strategy, we are all in it together, rally around me chums. I am the leader. But why is he so cheerful the worse it gets, beats me. Does he enjoy spending.
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balhamu, yes we saw that when it was printed on the FOURTH of December. Don't you have any new attempts to put a gloss on the terrible polling results for Labour?
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You imply likeness to a 'war-time leader' but not which one. Perhaps you had Nelson in mind and look what happened to him after a great victory.
I refer, of course to his putting a telescope to a blind eye and the analogy becomes clear.
Nelson died after a stunning victory, the P.M. , might "politically die" but I doubt that the comparision will be the same, after a stunning victory.
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32. At 7:55pm on 19 Dec 2008, gruad999 wrote:
"That said, Brown is, and always will be, the villain of this piece. John Major summed it up best, when he said that, after the house has been ransacked, you do not employ the burglar who did it to fit new locks."
I hardly think we need any lessons from the likes of John Major about burglars. He might just find it all rather embarrassing after his period of holding the highest Public Office in the land. And why employ "them" to try to recover a set of documents legally obtained - too hard to think about asking nicely and saving public funds perhaps, after all, I only needed them for a few days to find out about 'criminal activities'.
Sorry gruad999 but Major is hardly an example of an honest politician - if such a thing exists, and only time will tell on that one I'm afraid.
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#76 donofthenorth
Don't put too much trust in polling myself.
Brown is miles behind - the current poll is far too kind to him.
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74 balhamu
Yes I know, not impressive is it, if you can't keep your crew fed how can you say you can sort the economy. Same problem.
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This issue is about Gordon Brown acting on a situation. This shifts the focus from people making claims and laying things on to delivery. Nothing sells like a demonstration and there's nothing wannabes and folks with a grudge can do about that.
The challenge for Labour is to continue developing its own maturity: it must focus on polishing its policies to a shine, reaching out to people, and driving, driving, driving success down to the bottom rather than get sucked in to being arrogant and vindictive.
By putting a laser like focus on success, social liquidity, and patient accumulation of capital, their governance, popularity, and national wealth with develop of its own accord. With ego out of the way, I predict a landslide victory at the general election, a swift recovery, and a Japanese style post-war boom.
Gordon "gets it". Do you?
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I guess the arch-villian always carries a chunk of kryptonite.
Responsibility and discipline are requirements for all organisations that have an inpact on the lifes of people.
It's only right that the leader tells the oil firms to regulate their process.
The thriller in manila or the rumble in the jungle, GB is quite happy to take them all on!
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I have to agree with the comment about this column being a bit like something from Comical Ali....
Nick you really need to look up impartial in the dictionary.
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It's been a long time since I've hated a public figure so much. The worse the economic situation gets the broader his false smile becomes and the more I hate him for it.
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Never forget that this man is part of the blustering party who 'personally put paid to the economics of boom and bust.'
Now that we are in the dwang, it is the evil bankers and outside influences which caused the problem. Nothing to do with nuLabour's criminal mismanagement of the economy and Gordon Browns utter incompetence.
If the polls are right and people are returning to nuLabour then it is indeed avery dark day for the UK, because the UK will arguably have one of the most gulliable, thick electorates in the world.
That being said, if nuLabour is re-elected then I am going to give up my job and live on income support. (Like all good nuLabour supporters.)
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glanafon, its an example of what the country SHOULD have been doing under the less than watchful eye of Mr Brown. Matching outgoings with incomings. Mr Brown assures us he has no intention of holding an election soon, so why keep on staff to fight an election he does not have the courage to announce.
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What the year shows is the incredible resillience of Brown. The Conservatives look rattled. When Cameron pretends to be the champion of the working man against the "evils of unfettered capitalism" it is ridiculous. This appears to be the new Tory narrative. We are through the mid-term of this government and Labour are close enough in the polls for the next election to still be up for grabs.
The Conservatives on this blog and in the real world should be nervous.
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Major kicked the boot into the unemployed due to some loud mouthed reporting in the Daily Mail, and his last published opinion piece is disingenuous at best. My view is Major will lie and kick anyone if he thinks it will get him anywhere. He's good at faking gravitas and sincerity but his eyes are dead like a fish. There's nothing in that soulless monster but death and greed.
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Greatest lies ever....
Boom and bust ended....
It's all the fault of the US.....
No election next year.....
Cheque is in the post.....
Something about your mouth....
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#85 iang-b
Care to expand on that comment?
What proportion of Labour voters at the previous election were income support claimants?
Humour me.
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For crying out loud! Since when did the BBC blog comments sections become the mouthpiece of the conservative party? And the babbling, populist and downright crass wing of that party too?
Since we're in an ECONOMIC crisis, surely the logical thing to do would be to approach the problem with ECONOMICS and not POLITICS.
We are currently seeing a current slump in demand due to everyone (banks, homeowners, businesses) running out of money. Because we live in a free market, supply will fall to adjust the reduced demand. This all leads to deflation, lower GDP growth and rising unemployment.
To blame this on the government, using phrases like "ruined Ken Clarke's golden era" is like making the fact that it rains suddenly all the weatherman's fault. It's stupid and missing the point. Saying stuff like "Gordon Brown wasted the good times" or as David Cameron likes to say "we are on a borrowing binge" misses the point.
A quick recap of economics. 1) No one apart from the government really has any money to spend - banks, business, homeowners are all bankrupt to some degree. 2) Government spending now can prevent deeper, more destructive recessions making appearances next year. 3) Government borrowing is not a bad thing - in fact, it's a very good thing, as it allows cheap money to be pumped into the economy to prevent it falling apart.
Liking Gordon Brown to Robert Mugabe is silly. Robert Mugabe just printed money, more money, more money. This wildly exploded the money supply, causing sky-high hyperinflation. As witnessed in the so called "long depression" of 1873, a banking collapse lead to a long depression.
And when I say long depression, I mean long. 23 years to be precise. Remember Herbert Hoover in 1929-1932? He effectively said no to government intervention and yes to a balanced budget, as well as ridiculous protectionist laws. What happened? Well, he prompted one of the worst depressions ever - GDP fell by 25%, unemployment peaked at 13 million.
So stop trying to score political points, whiny conservatives - shape up or ship out, I say. Start helping the unemployed, the jobless, the poorest in society and get off your media fuelled bulls**t bandwagon.
Read some economic and history books, why don't you?
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Were is the war obviously in his head, war on a rollercoaster that should be fun.
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Nick,
"We political commentators may start to suggest that what a failing leader really needs to rescue them is a massive economic crisis."
Many a true word spoken in jest - this whole piece is a bit of subterfuge, n'est-ce pas?
Still it made me smile.
Something is troubling me now that Brown is starting to tread the boards of the world stage (though much in the "mere player" mould, to borrow from the quotation). What has become of our Foreign and Colonial Secretary?
Back in the summer (it seems so long ago, doesn't it now?), when Brown's fortunes were at about their lowest ebb, there was much positioning and posturing on behalf of a certain Mr Milliband. Speculation of a leadership challenge was rife - even within this hallowed blog.
Now of course it was later denied that such a challenge ever existed. Me sir, no. Nothing of the sort. (The ballad of Sir Brian?)
So what has this senior cabinet minister being doing since then? Like Blair before him, Brown is off doing summits and making speeches, saving the world and all its banks. But of this certain Milliband, we hear very little indeed.
A few discussions back you posted about the worsening crisis in Southern Africa. The cholera epidemic is spilling over beyond Zimbabwe's border and into South Africa.
The situation is ripe for diplomacy, to encourage South Africa to find a regional solution to the Mugabe problem, and at the same time strengthen ties within the Commonwealth it was so keen to rejoin post-apartheid.
It seems like a perfect opportunity for an ambitious and up and coming minister to make a name for himself - cometh the hour...
Oh well, perhaps not.
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He can blame all and sundry for the country's woes.
He can rack up debt for the next generation in the name of compassion.
He can bail out industries in marginal constituencies.
He can U-Turn 11 years of political direction with newly-created populist policies.
But Britain will not vote that man Prime Minister.
In an odd way, it's almost tragic.
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Nick, I think you may have hit on something here.
In war, as the saying goes, truth is the first casualty.
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iangb
Starter for 10 (based on the parliament.uk library research document on the 2005 election):
Labour votes at 2005 election - 9,552,400
Total income support claimants May 2005 - 2,150,760
So, if 100% turnout of income support claimants, assuming they are all British citizens who are eligible to vote, and all vote Labour gives you 22.5% Labour voters on income support in 2005
That's quite unrealistic for a number of reasons.
First, turnout among those claiming income support is rather less than 100% - assuming that it is the same as those living in social housing - which I would suggest is generous - would give a 51% turnout
Taking account of this would reduce the total number of people on income support who voted in the 2005 election of 1,125,380 - and assuming they all vote Labour, thats 11.3% of Labour voters
Secondly, they are rather unlikely to all vote Labour. Looking at the stats, 55% of people in social housing who voted voted Labour in 2005 (16% Tory, 19% LD, 10% other).
Taking account of this would reduce the total number of people on income support who voted in the 2005 election for Labour of 618,959, or 6.5% of Labour voters.
I need go no further (though there are a lot of other adjustments that need to be made e.g. Income Support claimants who are not British citizens, the fact that Income Support claimants tend to be distributed in certain non-marginal seats and so have a lower impact on elections than their numbers would suggest and so on and so on).
Labour's majority in 2005 was 767,500. So if you take away "the core NuLabor vote", they would have still won. Oh well. Best find some better stereotypes I guess.
And hope Cameron disenfranchises those who are on benefits or unemployed, or don't live in the Home Counties, or work for the public sector.
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'War time leader'....
As in Downfall?
(And a variation on the theme).
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A minor point of order: FDR was not a wartime leader when he made his 'fear' comment. He said it in 1933.
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I'm looking forward to the day when it dawns on the majority of the British population (51% will do) that Gordon Brown is an incompetent, arrogant, Machiavellian hegemonist.
Perversely, he's revelling in this crisis (largely of his own making in so far as the UK will suffer much more than our peer nations in the coming decade), presumably now likening himself to some latter day Churchill whose destiny is to lead us into bright sunlit uplands.
The man's deluded.
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# 26 .... " sounding more and more like a war leader" .... might I suggest David Lloyd George ? .... once, famously described by R.A. Butler as "a man not so weighed down by moral scruples that he couldn't walk upright" ....
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Okay, so it's definitely not Churchill. So which other wartime leader did you have in mind?
I can think of it least one for whom it would not be the first time the resemblance has been noted...
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All Brown is doing day by day is FURTHER
PROOF of his DELUSION.
POWER AT ANY COST ALL WAYS.
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"He didn't quite say we have nothing to fear but fear itself but Gordon Brown is increasingly adopting the tone and language of a war time leader."
That is no doubt because it is expected in the Downing Street bunker that things can only get much much much much much worse before they can begin to start beginning to edge ever so tentatively towards getting slightly not quite so horrendously cataclysmic on the economic front.
Anglo-American cowboy capitalism blew up in your faces, and the smoke has not cleared yet. The talk is now of a new kind of UK state-interventionist and cuddly socially responsible capitalism that is somehow to emerge from the wreckage and ruins of the old reckless action-adventure winner-takes-all capitalism that has just destroyed itself.
Is this to be another case of the great heroic UK superhero PM boldly going where no one has allegedly gone before and to which broad sunlit uplands all other countries' leaders are supposedly following him?
Hold on a moment, though. Is not the state-interventionist, protectionist and socially-responsible high-regulation model not somewhat reminiscent of how economies were run that were disapproved of by the Anglo-Americans before the collapse of Anglo-American capitalism . . . economies such as that of France, which, like Germany, has preserved a more substantial manufacturing base than has the UK and is expected to survive the recession in better shape than the UK economy, which, as we know, is substantially dependent on the financial-services sector, which is in such deep doo-doo?
So you are finally coming to your senses, are you? Too late, though. Your economically sounder European Union partners will steal a march on you and you could quite conceivably lose Scotland as a result of the present economic calamity. The loss of that oil-rich territory would in itself damage what is left of your relatively flimsy economy more than most of you realize or would be prepared to admit, even to yourselves.
Mr Brown understands the nightmarishly alarming danger that is taking shape, however. Well, he would, of course, not being a pukka sahib. Hence the wartime-leader act that is commencing. There is nothing like a perceived external threat, especially one which the public can be induced to react to as they would to a wartime threat, for drumming up a sense of solidarity, British solidarity, which is precisely what Scottish anglo-unionists such as Mr Brown need right now.
So you are going to have to put up with considerably more wartime-leader/saviour-of-the-planet rhetoric while the English economy continues to disintegrate before your eyes. Watch out for further impacts and unbelievably extensive fall-out. There is a war on, you know. Merry Christmas.
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xxx
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What a load of cods wallop we her these days. The answer to financial ruination is to follow good money after bad into the busines sector, rather than help thise who are going to suffer - the likes of you and me.
An alternative solution to the downfall wouldbe to pay off all individual debt giving the people the power to avoid the recession. This would also free us form the evil grasp that big business has upon us! Brown labour(new or old) and socialism do not appear compatable.
An evil and corupt society exists today and it is lead by Brown. He is despicable in the way he trys to gain poltcal advantage out of the misery of the masses, smiling through our adversity and suffering. His day of judgement draws nigh!!!!
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86 donofthenorth
Can't stand Brown, if you dont believe me ask balhamu. I still have to really hear Dave C come out with much I'm afraid. After the new Year I guess we will hear more, we certainly need to, and to hear something substantially different to Brown or there is no point. Clegg/VC still are making the most progress it seems to me but the chances of them getting in are slim. I find Brown quite extraordinary. Its not the blitz. The enemy is within not abroad. What on earth is he so happy about. The worse it gets the happier he appears. As for the sort of wartime talk, doesnt he know what happened when Churchill went to the polls, and he was a different calibre to Brown. I also can't understand all the talk about a election in the Spring. The first quarter of 2009 has to be grim. Quarter day is the usual failure point for businesses. If unemployment reaches 3m by end 09 that is 100k per month. Am I missing something.
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To no 36 & 50 BraveSouter: I am a student of economics and I dont need you to lecture me on the economy. EPS value only bears a peripheral impact on cost-savings made, that too depends on size, volume of company vs. wage spend savings percentage derived resulting from workforce made redundant. Simple fact bottles down to this - number of other countries are facing a recession. The ones coping better are those who have some semblance of a budget surplus. Australia faces tough times too, but will cope better than us, as will Germany for that simple reason alone. Even the Chinese and the Russians will cope with it better than us. The worst off would be ourselves and the Americans. It will unravel, already is for me. As another commentator said, you are entitled to your opinion and others to theirs. Dont try to patronize me! Some of us are suffering, you aren't.
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78 on something
"Major summed it up best, when he said that, after the house has been ransacked, you do not employ the burglar who did it to fit new locks."
Presumably that's why he got booted out big style?
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96 balhamu
Well if it is as simple as the lab majority last time being abou 3/4 million it is straightforward because I am sure GB has upset more than that, he has simultaneously screwed mortgage holders and savers, a difficult trick but 10 out of 10 for execution or is that the wrong choice of word. I suspect it is a bit more complicated than that, it is all about marginal seats.
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#74 balhamu
#80 glanafon
At 10:23pm on 19 Dec 2008, glanafon wrote:
74 balhamu
Yes I know, not impressive is it, if you can't keep your crew fed how can you say you can sort the economy. Same problem.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/29/labour
You are SO right.
QED
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Apart form the handfull of rock soild Brown appologists (including you Nick) - noone has anything good to say about brown.
You have hours of news coverage to broadcast, many blog entries to write etc... So you will keep pumping out this fantasy of brown having support from somewhere - but you know it isn't true.
If it weren't for the massive amount of coverage that the tv-tax payer is forced to finance, you would be honest, say that brown is finished and go on holiday until the next election. But with air-time and blog-time to fill, you have to say something don't you.
Pretending there is any possiblity of Labour winning an election is as sensible as suggesting that Mugabe would win one.
I could point out that brown has as much interest as bringing the country out of recession as mugabe has in reversing 'land-reform' (both the current position strengthens their position) -- but assessing 'browns position' in the polls is about as relevant as assessing mugabes.
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@33 rammie1962
"Anyone wanna nominate our Gordy for 'GOD' for 2009.... did I hear a second from you Nick?"
You reminded me, I heard someone exclaiming over something the other day. The exclamation was 'Gordon almighty'!
Perhaps we should trust in Gordon - nobody can deny that he works in mysterious ways! ;-)
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"Yes we can" said Obama"Can do" says Gordon. Dog whistle message - "Do nothing" say the Tories.
Presumably the intention is to morph Gordon and Labour from the people on whose watch all this happened to the change agents we need to save us from the effects.
Meantime, back on planet reality - - .
Whistling in the dark does not a leader make - wartime or otherwise.
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@108
'Presumably that's why he got booted out big style?'
Major was booted out because he inherited a then dysfunctional party that could be held to ransom so regularly by rebels due to a very slim majority. With that in mind it's quite remarkable that he achieved as much as he did, including successfully managing a very dicey economic moment largely bought about by opposition pressure to join the ERM.
I'd be surprised if Brown could achieve anything like that in the same circumstances.
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#93:
For the moment David Milliband is a busted flush while it is his brother who is now more in the limelight. His day may yet come again when The Labour Party eventually turns on Gordon Brown and consigns him to the dustbin of history.
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Gordon has started chuckling uncontrollably. His snickers and titters can be heard throughout the Westminster halls.
He smiles like an air hostess, and is actually racking up more air miles.
Meanwhile, we go broke and freeze, with a record number of pensioners likely to die from hypothermia this year.
Wait for it. It won't be long before Gordon "can-do" Brown skips down the steps off the plane back from some foreign land and declares "Crisis? What crisis?"
He is doomed.
See you in the pub.
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# 9:
I think this report fairly sums up voters attitudes in relation to most areas of Public life. Contrary to what you might think on this blog most people are now veering towards the centre of politics and are not as black and white Labour and Tory as these blogs appear to indicate. I tend to agree with this. It is the character traits of the P.M. which I personally find so distasteful. In the early days of Blair I was much more sympathetic towards Labour held views.
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No 108, the reason Major got kicked out was Black Wednesday. That was when the country turned decisively against the Conservatives. It didn't matter that from Black Wednesday on the economy improved and by the time of the 1997 election was doing very nicely. Major had made a nation wait four long years to get rid of him. And that bred resentment, so come May 1st, 1997, wiped him out.
Now, what do you think is going to happen after next March's budget, when Gordon the Golem's streetwalker Darling somes to the Commons and tells everyone how his spending is out of control and his forecasts were hopelessly optimistic?
If the Golem's gone to the country in February and has won, he'll make the country wait until 2015 when even a bouyant economy won't save him from armageddon. If he hasn't well, he'll make the country wait until 2010 and be wiped out mid-recession.
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Surely the reason that the Conservatives are falling back in the polls is that Labour have returned to the full spin cycle and the opposition MPs just counter by explaining their policies or attacking the ineffectiveness of government. The press too seem blind to the errosive power of spin.
We live in a "Reality TV" world. Millions read the tabloid papers and gossip rags where the content is aimed at those with attention spans of 20 seconds or less. Spin is often snappy and clever. It plays well in this environment. How much easier to listen to "Do nothing leader, of do nothing party" rather than to the target of such jibes explaining, albeit passionately, the difference between an immediate, comprehensive loan guarantee system compared to a dedicated government loan fund that only deals with $1B of a much bigger problem?
In a society (if ours can still be called that) that has grown irresponsible and lazy, always looking to blame someone else or be bailed out of trouble, how easy to believe that "it's all the afault of the US" and "We can just spend our way out of this"?
Labour are giving people catchphrases and handouts. Complex arguments will never get a fair hearing until either the spin is denounced and stopped or the pain gets so bad that the people lose their desire for quick, empty answers.
Worse still for the Tories is that this audience is still hungry for Sleaze and the press are well practiced at revealing it and enjoy the boost it gives to their ratings. One whiff of Tory sleaze and we are reminded of the late 90s and ask "have they really changed? Are they really ready to be trusted again?" And even though by now Labour are equally tainted by sleaze, they were never the party of sleaze, and no matter how much smoke there appears to be, they never seem to actually catch fire.
A partisan media will never attack spin because a) they like using it too much themselves and b) banning glib remarks and clever lies in favour of serious debate and home truths is a bit too grown up and patriotic - not very popular attributes at the moment.
I would like to see opposition MPs and impartial reporters (as the BBC should be) stop trying to debate the issues whenever Labour spin and instead, point out the spin and ask they why they are doing it, or simply challenge its assertions. Make spin the subject of debate until it is removed.
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Oh, and the reason that Gordon's awful, learing smile is getting wider and wider is that now he's spinning again, he feels really clever and superior.
Also, having spun his way through the last three elections quietly behind Tony without the Tories having an effective answer, then Tony took the blame for the lies and deceit.
OK, he had to soft peddle spin for a while having promised that spin was a thing of the past. But with the public distracted by the crisis, not only does spin return without being noticed (even bringing back Mandy has reawakened the public hate of spin), but also the opposition still has no answer. How lucky is that?
With spin neutering his opponents, he even gets to prance on the world stage and rack up his air miles. Life doesn't get any better!
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Golly. Good job I have a little something prepared:
Our Prime Minister, which art in Downing Street.
Thy name be Gordon.
Thy policy come.
Thy delivery done, as it is in parliament.
Give us this day our daily capital,
And forgive us our tax efficiency, as we forgive those who benefit scrounge against us.
And lead us not into tax havens.
But deliver us from asset stripping.
For thine is the Civil Service, the Inland Revenue, and foreign policy,
For ever and ever,
Amen.
Cut out and keep. You might need it!
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#117;
Merely noted that a recent report touched on the fact that most voters since 2000 had moved to the middle ground and were not representative of the majority of posts on here which tend to be be either black or white Labour or Tory. Went on to say that The Gordon Brown dislikeability factor was also very important as far as voting intentions were concerned.
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I have another one:
For ruthless cost-cutting give me Thatcher. For consumer boom give me Blair. But when you're in a war and recession strikes, get down on your knees and pray for Gordon Brown.
Punchy!
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Although Gordon Brown assumed his present position by default a goodly proportion of The Electorate have put their trust in him to steer the stricken ship through stormy waters. When the ship becomes becalmed once more and stock is taken of what has really happened to The Economy on his watch they will come to resent the fact that it has taken 4 years to remove him and exact their revenge for lost hopes and dreams.
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Isn't he failing as leader of the Labour party if he neglects to even consider an early election? Surely, part of his duty is to consider how best the party can get another term. (Godelpus!)
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Nick, why have a blog if you don't respond to some of the comments posted?
Please ask Brown -why he seems to enjoy the recession?
Please ask Brown - why this government signed upto Basel 2 which allowed the banks to lend more and tear up previous capital requirements
Please ask Brown why when senior politicians questioned the government and the Bank Of England regarding Northern Rock's unsustainable business model - they didn't look into it
Please ask Brown if he regrets taking housing and mortgages out of the RPI and using CPI as the measure of inflation - so when the asset bubble was being financed by cheaper debt - this artificially kept the interest rate lower than it should have
Imported Recession? - Not exactly
Brown is incompetent and will cost this country many years of trying to recover
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War time leader ?
He spends a lot of time in the bunker but the analogy stops there for me.
I saw GB on TV yesterday. His total lack of reality awareness is breathtaking and sickening, and he is actually starting to scare me.
I would like to think in years to come, he will be held accountable for whathe has done to this country.
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One thing you all tend to want is clear leadership. However, you translate that into a clear governmental majority, and fail to realise that you have about three years of rational government before megalomania sets in, the rule by diktat rather than by mandate.
A more reasonable approach would be to look for a hung government, such that it is forced to behave rationally to survive. Or a three-year mandate, take your pick.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
My comment #11 yesterday has been moderated out (no email explaining why!!). I will try again....Nick continues to fall in with the bias of BBC. This blog and Nick's performance on Fridays 6 o'clock news are not searching or even objective. The latest opinion poll (YouGov) is showing Tory lead increasing again....I have watched BBC news this morning plus checked teletext...absolutely ZERO mention. Sky News is covering the subject with inputs like "Brown bounce over". I wonder if Nick will today update this blog with some facts on the situation with Mr Brown?
Do not hold your breath!!
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"The big difference is that now the momentum is with him, not his opponents - so much so that today he had to insist that he was not even thinking about an early election.
"
Are you serious Nick??
The momentum is only with Gordo if you consider it in terms of the gadarene swine going over the cliff. All the evils that have befallen GB PLC can only be put right by a thumping defeat for Gordon at the GE
Take a look at whats going on in the economy, Woolies done for as are MFI, Jaguar are in trouble and wanting a bail out
The massive discounts in the shops (the 2.5% vat cut can now seen as laughable and is akin to burning money are sign of deflation and not good news at all , popular though they might be just now..
137000 people lost their jobs last month, how many will it be in January.??? 150000 ??? 20000???
PSBR figure worst in living memory, ,,
and Gordo says we are best placed to weather the mess engineered by his profligacy
There comes a time when hanging on to nurse for fear of something worse , doesn't work any more...... That moment IMHO has been reached.
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lorddudley@ 133:
I don't think you can rely much on any of these opinion polls but they look a lot healthier than the ones which not so long ago were showing one point leads. It's what's happening in the marginals that is more important and there's still a long way to go. If the trend continues I think we can forget an early Election.
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134 magpoliticaljunkie
You hit that with a bulls eye. Nick must wish that he hadn't written that comment with the YouGov poll coming out only 9 hours later.
The problem is that Nick is a Lobby journalist and like all of them is taken aside in Downing street and given a government briefing.
The question is what do the journalist does with it? Do he or she repeat it and become a mouthpiece for the government or do he/she chew it over and add it to other information that he/she get hold of.
If he/she doesn't repeat it his/her invitations to chats about "interesting information" become less common and his/her boss starts asking why he/she haven't got an exclusive.
By such means does this Labour government attempt to control the media, in particular the left leaning BBC.
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Another quietly released bombshell this morning from the smiling Cheshire Cat & his government is that they have sold our stake in the Trident programme.
The BBC does not consider this to be a headline story so they stick it as a sideline under UK news while the final of Strictly come dancing holds a higher position.
very appropriate from the LBC. (Labour Broadcasting Corporation)
Shadow Defence spokesman Gerald Howarth said: "The Atomic Weapons Establishment is critical to Britain's nuclear deterrent capability."
Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Nick Harvey said: "The whole argument used for Britain having a separate weapons establishment is that this is required by the non-proliferation treaty, as technology sharing is not allowed.
"We must therefore query the rationale of a US company having a majority shareholding in AWE. How does this all square?"
It's beggers belief.
No matter what government we have next, it will take a generation and untold high taxation or spending cuts to repair the damage done by Labour in 11 years.
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Nick can you ask Gordon Brown the following questions.
1). Is he in any way responsible for the financial crisis in Britain.
2). Give examples of how the VAT cut has worked.
3). Is it morally right that Mandelson is back based on his previous behaviour.
4). How can Mandelson be making so many decisions when he is unelected by the people of Britain.
5). Why he is doing nothing for people who have been prudent and have worked and
saved hard.
6). Will he wheel his wife out again to save him when the economy gets even worse.
7). Why he does not know the current status of the tax payers bank bail out money.
Just to say I have always voted labour but never ever again. Brown has taken this country down and its hard to believe he is still PM.
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Nick
The answer to you headline "the Brown Rollercoaster" is that rollercoasters go up and down.
"The opinion polls tell the story of the Brown rollercoaster - up and up went the Tory lead. In the past three months it's gone down and down until now the two parties stand roughly where they did 12 months ago."
As you see by the YouGov poll the Cameron train is going up and the Brown rollercoaster is going down. Brown has been flying by the seat of his pants and on peddling the "Big Lie" that the problem is foreign and nothing to do with him. He is once again showing his ability to deny facts and blame someone else when things go wrong while taking all the credit when things go well. Remember how he used to claim the credit for the economic growth during the last 4 years of the Tory Government when inflation was actually lower than the last 4 years of Zanulabour?
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#121
The "Inland Revenue" doesn't exist any more since it was stupidly amalgamated with HM Customs and Excise. Even if it did, it would be part of the Civil Service.
So, inaccuracy and tautology in the same sentence.
Try to cut and paste something more current, please.
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Nick -- very disturbing press conference - especially when we read your spin on that stupid grin. I observed your question -- why did you let him come back with the usual "global crisis" stuff. Challenge him -- he screwed up and is a major part of the global crisis.
Here's a challenge for you to develop with Robert P. over Christmas. Put together the UK GDP, Trade Deficit/Surplus, Total Debt, [including PSI related] and GBP to USD, GBP to Euro stats for the period 1997 - 2008 and share them with with us in tables and graphs. Might explain the truth behind crash Gordon's policies.
Oh and yes for good measure pop in something to demostrate what gold has down in the same period.
Then for your next exercise -- track pension fund values for the past ten years and the ability to pay going forward.
Much more informative that releasing the same Labour spin day in, day out.
Happy New Year to all the posters !
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First Mr Bean, then moses, then superman & now he's churchill???
Nick are you daft? Mr Bean was the only one near the mark.
He's grinning because the credit crunch is allowing him to hide his complete mismanagement of the UK.
Get him out is our only hope.
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How can anyone doubt the recession came from abroad?
First, that is entirely consistent with IMF and EU expectations that the UK will likely be hit harder than average.
Second, it is also consistent with sterling's course through these choppy waters.
Third, the US forced Brown to:
-run a budget deficit when the economy was growing above trend;
-let UK banks become the weakest-capitalised banks in Europe by the end of 2006;
-influence monetary policy committee appointments to make the Bank of England dovish when the housing market boomed and consumers were getting themselves into more and more debt;
-let UK banks extend mortgage loans combined with unsecured loans to well over 100% of house prices;
-whittle away billions in wrongly paid tax credits.
How can anyone doubt that the UK and hence Brown is a victim of circumstance, which by the way is a phrase from a Billy Joel song titled HONESTY!
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Don't Roller Coasters traditionally have impressive sounding names, like the "Grand National" or the "Big one" or the "Corkscrew";
The phrase Brown Rollercoaster is a bit dull....
How about something more imaginative and appopriate, like the;
"Monstrous calamity"....
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Gordon.. who is of course partly responsible for the mess we are in, is one of those leaders who is completely aimless without a clear target. Sadly, he has provided a clear target, our current mess. When this clears, he will revert to the same rudderless Mr. Bean. By then I sincerely hope that we will have the opportunity to show what we think of him and his party via an election.
During his time in the Treasury he demonstrated his lack of management ability and his appalling communication skills. However, we thought this lack would be compensated by his technical skill. How wrong we were. The sooner this man and his party go, the sooner we can return to rebuilding UK plc
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About to leave to spend my Christmas break with misswaldorf and my sisters and their children in Norwich and Henley Upon Thames. No matter what your political hue I wish you all a really peaceful Christmas and New Year and in spite of the prevailing financial crisis hope that 2009 brings you hope, health and hapiness. If at times I've ranted rather too much on these blogs I apologise but it's borne out of a passion for what I think is right. I don't go along with all the policies propagated by my chosen party but I do think that they are the right way to go after a long period of misguided decision making.
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Nick
On the whole an interesting blog: I don't blame Brown for trying to put a positive gloss on our current reality. Any PM is his position would do it.
My only point would be to take issue that the momentum is with him: no doubt the government will continue to announce lots of initiatives, but at some point people will start asking, 'We see all these announcements but can't see any tangible benefits. Things keep getting worse not better. What's going on?'
In my view, the real initiative lies with the recession. Sadly. This will continue to deepen well into next year. Brown will find himself fighting an ever more unwinnable uphill strategy. Expect the May budget to blow his already appalling borrowing figures out of the water, continued sterling weakness leading to imported inflation so reducing the BoE's ability to cut interest rates, potentially a gilt buyers' strike etc etc.
The reality is that this is going to get far, far worse.
And as time goes on, it is also going to become clearer that the government cannot spend its way out of this recession. Having racked up so much debt so early, if the downturn lasts longer than he thinks (and it will - listen to Varley at Barclays), he will have nothing left to offer: worst case is that he'll be forced to raise taxes and drastically cut spending before we're even out of the recession in 2010. People will unfortunately discover the hard way that Brown's made a very bad situation even worse.
If you have too much debt, you cannot defy gravity by borrowing your way out of the problem. You will only make it worse, much worse.
As this becomes clearer, I very much doubt voters will forgive him. So, call me a cynic, but it would make much more sense for him to call an election earlier rather than later.
Finally, thanks for all your blogging this year.
A Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year to all!!
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Nick you said in your news report that the howls by the opposition after Brown's 'we saved the world' comment were caused by 'frustration' at Brown's success.
That is an interpretation, another view - one not sanctioned by NuLabour would be that Brown was found out from a Freudian slip.
Not that Brown hasn't been found out already, at least outside of Broadcasting House.
By the way, what has been Brown's 'success'?
Answers on a postcard to...
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"Brown sounding like a wartime leader".
Frankly, Brown trying to call down the spirit of Churchill is hubris in its purest form.
Nick - I have to ask - who was it who told you to say that?
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Nick
Those of us that have been on a rollercoaster and I must admit was a number of years ago, remember two things
1. The abrupt halt it comes to and all change.
2. The feeling of sickness after you get off.
So yes it is a great way to describe Flash Brown's year, leaving us all feeling sick and the country coming to a halt.
Its worth looking back at earlier blogs of the year and surprise surprise some of Nicks contributors were predicting, yet Flash Brown was like the king in the pantomime, believed they had spun him some new clothes.
Not a pretty sight.
Off to take a holiday so Merry Christmas and may 2009 be a lot better for us all.
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Let?s face it, the man likened himself to Churchill when he was in Afghanistan recently - what?s that if it isn?t delusions of grandeur! He has been, unchallenged, in a position of high authority for far too long. Goodness only knows what sort of deal he and Blair had, but whatever it was it hasn?t done the country one jot of good.
@ #36 ? I sincerely hope you survive the next few months, possibly years. I hope you keep your job, your home and your pride - because that has been denied to so many under this government.
You say, ?? fools still blame a single British politician. It says more about them than it does about the Prime Minister.?
I can?t believe you?re living in the same planet as me, let alone the same country!
This man, this single British Politician, has had control of the country?s finances for the last eleven years. He still won?t let go of the purse strings even though he?s meant to be Prime Minister. One of the first things his chums did when they came into power was to spend an absolute fortune on posh wallpaper ? because they could, because they were ?in charge?. They were like little kids let loose with the sweetie jar, and it?s gone on in exactly the same way ever since, with reckless spending that has done little to improve the country.
That?s my money they spent, money from my savings, money from my pension, money they?ve taken from me in taxes. They even make me send some of my Community Charge to other parts of the country because they think I?m rich ? because of geography! I can?t afford to decorate my house because there?s nothing left in my kitty ? and they are still spending my money on wallpaper and paint, doing up their wretched offices to make themselves feel good!
Our road networks are crumbling. Public transport infrastructure is a disaster ? expensive, oversubscribed, inefficient and closed after midnight (what are we supposed to use ? pumpkins and mice?). Our health service isn?t a service. Our education system is an over-managed disgrace and neither Policing nor education could survive without low-paid, lesser-qualified support staff. Government administration is propped up by people earning minimum wage - and they?re the ones who calculate our taxes!
There is an economic apartheid between Scotland and England. Tuition fees, elderly care and prescription charges are a few of the fiscal policies that the Scots seem to be able to afford, but England is incapable of matching. Here in England a hard-working child is ?praised? by being forced to pay for higher education, that benefits the whole country, leaving University with long-standing debts in excess of £21k and remains legally dependent on their parents until age 25. Yet their lazy, ill-mannered, illiterate and fecund peers get given a home of their own and money to live on, and even more help of they fail to live within their means.
They?ve built houses on fields (that could grow food instead of importing it) with gardens barely big enough to swing the proverbial cat, let alone grow lettuce - and then some think tank tells us to eat superfoods that only grow in South America. So much for carbon footprints! Try to insulate your privately-owned home and you pay top price, not so for those on benefits ? they get grants.
Employment figures have been massaged until they bear no relation to fact. Unemployed spouses and partners of those in work are denied support while breeding teenagers live the life of Riley. Manufacturing jobs have haemorrhaged to the Far East until we have virtually no skillbase. Building the Olympic venues was dependent on migrant labour, but they?re all going home because it?s too darned expensive to live here so there?s a mad scramble to train school-leavers to be brickies and joiners ? too little, too late!
We?re in a desperate position, and it will get worse. The majority of goods coming into the UK are purchased in Euros or Dollars, with exchange rates tumbling we?re going to see massive price rises in the spring. I know that, why doesn?t he? What?s he doing - he?s borrowing, and encouraging the people who brought us to the brink because they couldn?t repay their debts to borrow even more!
And Brown, that single politician who is responsible for this sorry mess, has a smile on his face. Why? - I?d expect the person in charge of the country right now to actually look worried sometimes, but he seems to be relishing the misery with his newly-developed a Cheshire Cat-like grin.
My voting preference? (For those who care about such things.) I know, as an absolute certainty, that neither me nor mine will ever vote for a Labour politician as long as we live.
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#3 "Sounding like a war leader? Chamberlain or Churchill?"
The worst qualities of both. Chamberlain's party was never elected while he was PM and leader; he inherited from Baldwin. Like Brown, he ignored the warnings and didn't see the crisis coming.
Churchill was a good war leader, right about Hitler and Stalin, but economically incompetent and wrong about nearly everything else of importance in his political career.
His "good war" did not save him at the polls in 1945. Nor will or should it save Brown.
Funny enough, Attlee's party always beat Churchill's in the popular vote - even in 1951 when Labour "lost" with 48.8% of the vote to 44.3% for the Tories.
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Me: "I do what it says on the tin".
Charles_E_Hardwidge wrote:
"No you don't. You never acknowledge anything Labour do right even if it's put under your nose, and never have anything bad to say about the Tories or Liberals. It's just one whine after another. Trust me, it never solves anything or seals deals, and always comes back to bite you in the ass."
Charles. I'm just a member of the elctorate and a tax-payer.
I had lots of bad things to say about the Thatcher and Major regimes, when their administrations didn't deliver.
For 11 years, Labour has been in power. They are the only people with hands on the levers of power. It really doesn't matter what Tories or Lib/Dems say - they can't actually DO anything.
There have been plenty of initiatives or policies that I approved of during the Blasir/Brown continuum.
But, it ain't what you say - it's what you do that counts.
That's my beef (or whine, if you prefer it).
I've heard plenty of corporate leaders get up and spout a wonder vision. Then waited and waited and seen no real delivery. I don't admire those guys/gals.
Same with governments. Lots of stuff that sounds quite attractive - but then a lack of delivery. Which they interpret as the need to paint another picture, pass yet more laws - but manage little effective follow-through.
I was initially keen to see what "New" Labour would do, given a massive wave of public support and an apparently sound approach to economic management.
This may sound odd, but I think Mandelson is a sensible and effective politician when he gets stuck in. I just don't like the values of spin applied to all aspects of government, of which he was the leading proponent.
I was keen to see a "modernised" public sector. The poor NHS has gone through re-organisation after re-organisation. You know as well as I do that when that sort of stuff happens in business, it demoralises personnel. It also tends to create layers of adminsitrative management, rather than focusing on the people at the coal-face.
I happen to think that Vince Cable has provided the best commentary on economic affairs. (Of course, he comes from a practical working economics background. I don't see much in the way of similar background around the Treasury.)
I approved Brown's introduction of the 10p tax-band. Frankly, I thought - still think - that it could have been more specific to those on lower income. I absolutely think he cocked up by withdrawing that break.
That's a comment about not liking the delivery... I don't give a stuff about politicians as social personalities, but I care whether they can effectively help those who need help.
If you think that's too "whining" an approach - well, I'll live with it.
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Charles. Have you read posting No.29?
It's from a man who has already lost his job and is trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sort of help from a government who purports to feel our pain.
I think the terminology he used was that Labour were (and I quote) "THE DELIVER NOTHING PARTY" You say that lots of us have nothing good to say about government. Well, this man is at the sharp end - and it ain't working.
When government start to actually DO something that actually filters down to the people that need it, perhaps our views will change. Until then, live with it.
Read this man's post. It'll put you in the picture.
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Let's look at Gordon's "achievements" through all of this.
He claimed to have abolished boom and bust.
When the IMF said the UK was the least prepared of major economies to weather the storm he decided he knew better.
He failed to put anything by for a rainy day during a decade of apparent growth.
Now we face a bust, we realise we are the worst prepared of major economies to weather the storm, and the cupboards are empty, Comrade Brown expects us to believe he is the best person to get us through? Don't make me laugh.
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Dead cat bounce.
Wait till February.
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This caption 'Number10.gov.uk' totally baffles me.
Surely 'Your Captain - The Titanic' would be far more to the point.
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Rollercoaster? There may be one at the Kursaal, in Southend. Kursaal means "Cure All" - is that the tenuous connection you mean? Hmmmm. Reverse psychology more like.
I would liken him to a failing military man:
Major Disaster or General Calamity
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As grandantidote used to say 'Charles is wearing blinkers down to his knees.' There's no reasoning with him. His mind is closed. Anyway must be off. Happy Christmas!
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88. You talking about Duke Nukem computer games or our politics here?
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Happy Christmas Scilian and Miss Waldorf! We are having Christmas at our daughter's fourteen of us, she has a huge table!
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The whole Labour position and fortunes are based on the PBR. All of the alarming borrowing calculations are based on the economy coming out of recession and seeing growth in the second half of 2009.
The stupidity of this claim cannot be blurred or altered as time marches on.
The already criminal borrowing will be seen to increase. Also the tax rises will start to come into view as time moves on.
I believe there is a simple yet devastating message that will destroy the little credibility that Labour have left
?Labour has destroyed the economy every time it?s had power?.
The Tories have seen this, if fact it was the base for Osborne?s reply to the PBR.
Once this simple but true message gets an airing it will chime in people?s minds with they?re current experience of Labour.
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help me jacqui is trying to
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73 fairlyopenmind? wrote
Are you trying to be Ironic? What about Dave Mussolini? would that be OK?
An optomistic person says a glass is half full. An insanely optomistic person says a mind is not rusted shut, its fairly open.
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161: patricia
Many thanks for the Christmas greetings. That's an enormous bird you'll need. Hope your daughter has enough room in her oven. Which part of the country are you heading off to?
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This tells you everything you need to know about brown.
Mr Brown said.
The "visionary internationalism" that had been displayed in connection with the global banking crisis must be applied to energy challenges.
However, within hours of Mr Brown's plea oil producers were criticising his approach. Opec secretary-general Abdullah al-Badri told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "I think Mr Brown is very confused, because if he is looking for the interests of his people he should look at the taxes."
He thinks his a
"visionary internationalist"
But he is just an old style
Tax to much & Spend to much fool
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the real lesson from all of this is not a tory vs labour one - it's that the people at the top in all walks of life are PHONIES who do not know what they are doing - they have reached senior positions only due to looking the part or having a nice speaking voice or sucking up to the right people, or some other reason that has precisely nothing to do with talent or integrity or hard work - this layer of people need to be removed and put to work digging holes or something - then take the people currently digging holes, plus some housewives and single mothers, and put them in charge - better still, let's have a cast iron rule that white middle class men are barred from any position of power and authority - revolution please! - otherwise, believe me, nothing will really change ...
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For those of you still wedded to the wonderfulness of Gordon, check him out here: http://tinyurl.com/8g48q2
... then pleae let us know why we should be rallying behind our Supreme Leader for another 4 years.
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#167:
A classic case of tarring everyone with the same brush. Granted some people have reached the top by way of influence or inherited money etc. Others have worked damn hard to get where they are. Why should they be expected to give way to those who left school at the earliest opportunity just because they couldn't stand the pace or wormed their way onto the benefits ladder by playing the system. With your suggested revolution there would be little room for enterprise. Jobs should be allocated according to hard work and merit, nothing more nothing less.
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#164 dhwilkinson wrote:
"73 fairlyopenmind? wrote
"..But at least now, Brown has Lord Mandy Goebbels back on board..."
Are you trying to be Ironic? What about Dave Mussolini? would that be OK?
An optomistic person says a glass is half full. An insanely optomistic person says a mind is not rusted shut, its fairly open."
dhw
The only pop I take at politicians is at those who have power.
All the others are just making up the numbers. Most of the population voted for non-Labour candidates. (It's been a while since the populist vote delivered more than a 50percent verdict. It's why I quite like the French system, where no candidate is elected without - at a first or second - or if necessary another vote - the total votes crept over that 50 percent total...)
But we need a voice to challange whatever a government wants to do. Otherwise, we have a dictatorship.
At this point, I don't really care about what Tory or Lib/Dem people say. Because they have absolutely NO control over the way things are carried out - or "interpreted" through the media.
Dave "Mussolini"? If you like. Your comment.
Goebbels manipulated information. Wasn't really in a position to direct anything, as his boss just had to be in power. But Goebbels
created an environment which helped a rather odd personality to sustain power.
Mussolini WAS in power and did some rather atrocious things.
I'm not sure how many people would come on the streets and hang Cameron from a lamp post right now.
Why? Because he has no power.
Maybe, later they would get that urge. I'd hope not. Just as I wouldn't want Blair or Brown to dangle on public display.
Yes, I'm insanely opimistic enough to hope that politicians who attain power actually exercise it in a sensible and sustainable way. It's an odd thing, but I like the idea that social progress can be made on behalf of my children.
That's what I have the opportunity to vote for.
And that as someone who doesn't really give a good goddam about any party, just about what they do with the power they access.
Someone who has never subscribed to a party. Doesn't like the idea of State funding for parties. Who's voted if different directions for a few decades.
More in hope than expectation...
What about you?
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Another day, another disaster this "leader," has led us into.
He has wasted 12 billion on this stupid 2 1/2% vat cut - now he is probably going to have to bailout the car industry. Where`s that money coming from? The cupbaords bare already.
When he was planning his headline news with this vat cut did he not think for one moment what maybe round the corner?
Did he not think, " it might be an idea to keep some capital back for the future?"
We have this man, who is supposed to have been the best Chancellor ever, who clearly has not idea about financial managment making a right lash up and getting us all into greater debt by the day.
The next major hurdle facing this country is the Community Charge for 2008/9. There are going to be major shortfalls in every Borough and councils , unless given extra funding, will have to cut services and make staff redundant.
Why on earth did the PM not keep the 12 billion back for that, where it would have had far greater effect than cutting 2 1/2 % on vat - at a time when it was not necessary and consequently had no effect on spending whatsoever.
I absolutely dispair. One can hope that the Polls for Labour get so dire in the new year that the party comes to it senses and gets rid of him before he ruins this country completely.
I just hope Vince Cable can be persuaded to join the tories as he is the only one with any sense in all of this; but if he stays with the Liberals there is no chance of him being in a postion of real influence. (It is xmas after all and one can only wish!)
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#167 sagamix
"...the real lesson from all of this is not a tory vs labour one - it's that the people at the top in all walks of life are PHONIES who do not know what they are doing ...
- better still, let's have a cast iron rule that white middle class men are barred from any position of power and authority - revolution please! - otherwise, believe me, nothing will really change ... "
That's a really sad comment.
I've worked with lots of people, from lots of backgrounds. Some good, some bad.
Some of the "bad" guys/gals actually delivered a hell of a lot.
Some of the "good" guys/gals were ineffective and wasted the talents of their personnel.
Can't say that colour or class made much of a difference.
It's hard to extend your approach to other nations.
Are you saying that lower class white people should be in charge in Zimbabwe? (Because they don't represent the broad spectrum of the population...?)
Are you saying that white, middle-class people should have no influence in Australia?
This blog does seem to encourage a few wild swings, but it's always nice if people explain the background for their comments.
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Brown, smiles and laughs (pic top of the page) while we are all in the brown stuff.
He is loving this bust that we were never going to have again. When (and lets hope its soon) he is no longer PM he will get a nice pension he might even get to write in a newspaper host "Have I got news for you" and then just slip away while we will all be paying taxes to fund Browns cock-up.
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Which war leader did you mean Nick, Churchill or Stalin ? The man is in total denial, he actually thinks that his incompetent mismanagement of the economy had nothing to do with the fact that the country is on the verge of insolvency. It wasn't him who taxed and regulated the country to fill his government's coffers , then squandered the funds on the workshy the pseudo sick and other idiotic social schemes instead of saving for a rainy day. Now the great flood has arrived and his ark is leaking like a seive.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Actually I think he is just fed up of the media and economists who are trying to sell books preaching doom and gloom for their own ends.
Not all politicians care for the country first, but those that do completely outnumber the journalists who pretend they do.
I used to do a lot of work on the Pathé News archives.
Although journalists like to criticise the government back in the 30s and 50s (the 40s was an odd one out), you should see them rally to the cause of Britain should criticism come from else where.
When the German finance minister criticized our government recently, you could hardly see him for the herds of British journalists falling at his feet.
Sad really. The British Media has made kicking our own country trendy.
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What really galls me, is that billions of pounds could be found in an insant to bail out the greedy Banks, and yet this government let the Health Service and our pensioners struggle on for years without any proper financial help at all.
I seem to remember our pensioners beng given a 50p rise in their pensions not so long ago.
It really does beggar belief.
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Dear Nick,
Re-132,
GB wartime leader????
Blair, (IRAQ) mislead us,
Thatcher, (FAULKLANDS) stabbed in the back by the party,
Churchill, (WWII) lost next election,
See the pattern!
Xxxx
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#177
You are dead right. Brown could find £'s and £'s to give away all over the world to make him look like he was everyone's mate.
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In all honesty although it's only my opinion the photo at the top of this blog is a certain vote loser. It used to be said of Gordon Brown (more recently in a C4 body language documentary in relation to him) that while his mouth smiled like a cheshire cat his eyes or eye betrayed his real feelings. In the photo he avoids this charge by having them both firmly closed. Even so the smile appears to be so obviously false much like the ones proffered by little children when snapped by their Mums and Dads.
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To all those who think Nick is a GB stooge, look at the photo.
To me he looks triumphalist, sinister - and ill. Would any true fan of Gordy have published it?
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By the sping of 2010 the peak of unemployment will be at least 3M and on top of that pile there will be a one space reserved.................
for Crash Gordon!
How ironic will it be that having followed policies that will have thrown millions on the dole and caused immense suffering to millions it will be the electorate who finally put the icing on the cake and plonk that grinning disaster right on top!
I can't wait to see his face on the day he has to leave Downing Street with his political legacy in utter tatters.
I just wsh the reserved British would adopt the every so apt Iraqi way of showing contempt for poor political leadership and start throwing shoes at the whole of Gov't ministers everytime they come out of their gold plated ministries!
The UK is getting like Zimbabwe everyday.
It's criminal.
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browns rollercoaster: built on shaky foundations and powered by credit.
a collision waiting to happen!
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Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
Who will it be to get us out of this economic disaster?
Brown, Cameron or Cable?
Cameron had better become a bit more Cablesque because we need gold plated leadership and gold plated policies to find a safe harbour in this storm.
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I'm just fed up with those who are always talking Britain down. Sad, twisted people. There are going to be some casualties - through redudancy and reposessions - and they deserve all our help.
We are being told that whatever the causes are and whoever is to blame, CONFIDENCE is the one ingredient which is essential to recovery. Working, as I do, with people who have serious debt problems that one ingedient will decide how long their pain will go on. Those who believe that there is a bright future are the ones who get back on their feet (even if they still have the prospect of many years paying off their debt). The Brown haters and the ones who just want to blame NuLabour or more insulting Zanulabour are the ones who will further destroy confidence and prolong the recession as they are so negative about the country they live in. I'm not even saying that I think the government has got it right. I am quite happy to read why Cameron has got it right; that would be a positive message and would build confidence.
But the non-stop negative comments are adding to the destruction of the country and inhibiting its ability to recover. Whether Brown has got his policies right or not, the one thing he has got right is that unless we believe that there is a solution (maybe not his solution) to our problems this country will decline in the manner hoped for by many doom ladened bloggers. Positive comments about the future and not harking back to the past would be much appreciated.
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Come on folks.
Politicians can't "fix" things for us.
At best they set a framework within which we can all live.
Some decent laws. Which most people can understand. And actually know have been approved by elected MPs.
Some decent delivery, so we benefit from the intended consequence of legislation.
If you or I walk about with no idea of the thousands of new laws that have been implemented over the years, do you (or I) really expect to be hauled up in front of the beak?
I have absolutely nothing against any party.
I just don't like any politrician who gets up in Parliament or on the media stage and spouts stuff, but fails to deliver.
Where's the proof that "Education. Education. Education." has delivered anything?
India produces more scientistist than we do. And because the students inherited a (nasty) colonial educational system, these guys and gals write better English than our own students.
Why should that be?
I don't think that's an anti-Labour comment. Just a criticism that "modernising" with no genuine understanding of input and output is the sort of guff that many corporate managers sick-up.
So why should any criticism of an administration which has been in power for 11 years be perceived as an attack on a party?
There are lots of people who truly care about the future for themselves and their children.
You don't have to subscribe to any party's manifesto to want good things.
Who's the richest MP in parliament? A Labour MP. So what?
Good ambitions come from people with good motivation.
I'd guess that Bill Gates got where he is by following pretty capitalist motivations. But the guy is pushing enormous amounts of his own wealth into projects for a "public good".
Someone said that leaders are "PHONIES".
Maybe. But if the desire to do good is there, does it really matter whether you are rich or poor, "Right" or "Left", Labour or Tory?
I don't think so.
Just take whatever tax is needed at the min imal level. Work out how to spend it sensibly. Teach people that, although you want to help the poor, you don't expect them to be truly stupid about what they do with their lives. And definitely tell the richer folks that they have no particular reason to expect a bit of state aid.
(In case you haven't noticed - I strongly believe that our current problems were constructed by people playing around with financial issues. Bankers really stuffed up. The UK really stuffed up, too, because we allowed - well Brown allowed - people to borrow far too much. With minimal back-up. Does that make me anti-social development? I really hope not. Have tried to help my kids along the way. Just don't see how financial regulators have helped, by letting folk borrow at stupid multiples of income against inflated asset value.)
I'd be quite happy to see a Bill that suggested that nobody could be elected to Parliament before the age of 40.
That would mean that, post-school or university, people would have needed to make a living for quite a while.
I totally accept that there are some intellects that have to be nurtured in all things political.
I'd far prefer a good Union Leader in parliament than an untried bright spark with no genuine exposure to the real world of the voting population.
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# 136 skynine, you suggest that the BBC is 'left-leaning' and I assume you infer that they're biaised toward New Labour as they're 'left-leaning' too.
Since when were New Labour ever 'left-leaning'? They're flag waiving neo-liberals responsible and clearly the most authoritarian UK government in recent history.
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Ruislip, Scillian. A little bit of England left in North West Londonium.
Actually, its not really heading off as it's only twenty minutes from where we live.
We are ten miles from London and it is grim, believe me. Coming from Kent it is a real eye opener.
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BoilerBill
I read your comments with interest.
Can I just say that it is not the negative comments that have added to the destruction of this country, but our government, who couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag, let alone the economy.
My son has been maderedundant with a wife and three children to support and I am now on a 3 day week.
Tell me - what have we got to look forward to?
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My brother and his wife looney leftie, socialists, lecturers, you know the pattern. When Blair was elected they skipped about their house in hippie fashion (they like to look like trees too) so elated their beloved "Socialists" had got in.
Months later, when we asked them "what has Nu Labour got to do with Socialism?" They hung their heads and went into deep depression.
Tory Blair copied the Conservatives in all but name on many aspects of his tenure. True Socialists were disgusted with him.
My view is that they are one crazy mixed up party but they lack the strength, stamina, leadership qualities etc etc. They have allowed this political correctness to run rife because it pleases the liberalists but now they find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They need counselling, if only the cure their unelected leader of his nail biting and nose picking.
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I suppose the grinning jackass believes that, as he got us into this mess, he's the only one capable of getting us out. I, personally, would trust him to run a Christmas club.
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187 extremsense
You are of course absolutely right on both counts.
185 Boilerbill
"Whether Brown has got his policies right or not, the one thing he has got right is that unless we believe that there is a solution (maybe not his solution) to our problems this country will decline in the manner hoped for by many doom ladened bloggers"
Boilerbill is certainly right on the second point however on the first point "he" is one of those people who has an arrogant belief that he never makes an mistake and is always the only one who has the right ideas. Poor Alistair Darling must be pulling his hair out (not that he has a lot) as the First Lord of the Treasury reinforces his own position as "Saviour of the world."
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Just because you couldn't see what was going to happen doesn't mean it wasn't predictable - plenty of us saw that Brown's policies were leading to the usual Labour denouement of a sterling crisis, and you can read plenty of comments from late 2006 onwards from me, at least, saying just that. I'm nothing special - loads of us foresaw it.
Lots of us also foresee that things are going to get much, much worse very quickly and the government still isn't owning up to it - although the signs are there of panic, such as the decision to stop publishing data on the money supply (i.e. repealing s.6 of the Bank Charter Act 1844) just when the printing presses are about to be turned on. Turn your attention to that - it'd be a proper bit of journalistic investigation for once.
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How sad that Brown is only happy in a crisis for the rest of us which he as no control over. I would perfer a laeder that can cope with the good and bad times. Brown is no good for any of us. Also Nick I think Brown as peaked and it?s down all the way.
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#167 sagamix wrote
"... better still, let's have a cast iron rule that white middle class men are barred from any position of power and authority "
Good idea. All our leaders should come from the aristocracy.
Or did I misunderstand you?
I did?
Hmmm.... So you really want a government ran by people of the moral and intellectual calibre of John Prescott and Gorbals Mick?
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#194 PEZ1960
You say Brown has peaked could you or any Brown lover let me know when that was?
Was it the selling of our gold, screwing the pensions up putting fuel duty up, 10p in the pound or any of the other cock-ups he has made?
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Charles_E_Hardwidge @121,
(I made a comment about how we could deify Brown, but the censors didn't like it.)
Besides, shouldn't your offerings be in haiku form? Such as
Twelve long years wasted
Flushed down the pan by Gordon
The future - is brown
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Crikey! The Censors are sensitive this evening.
Have I offended the image of the Great War Leader?
Should I be fearful of the knock on the door at 4 a.m.?
(I know, I know.... You are only obeying orders).
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sagamix @167 wrote:
"better still, let's have a cast iron rule that white middle class men are barred from any position of power and authority "
Quite right! All our leaders should be upper class aristocrats.
Oh - did I misunderstand you?
I did?
I see.... so you want us to be represented and lead by people of the moral and intellectual calibre of John Presscot and Speaker Martin.
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Mr Brown's emotional vision:
Consuming fire; the flames of the martyrdom of Joan of Arc, Phaedra's misguided passion, Medea's jealousy, Lady Macbeth's ambition. Fire, if left to burn unchecked, can consume the soul.
Mr Browns mystical vision:
A traveler. A journey. The call of far away places. The arrival or return of a pilgrim or wanderer. A person of far-ranging interests and restless curiosity who is desirous of change and transformation. Inventive and artistic, but sometimes absent-minded person. Having one's "head in the clouds."
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# 198 magyisgod
There are some examples of Brown's "brilliantness" at the link in my post at # 168. The man's a star!
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To MaxSceptic
Shame we cannot see what you are writing, if only the BBC had edited Russ Brand and Jonny £bags Ross like they do your blogs.
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#203 MORAYMINT
And like a star Brown will die and fade away.
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Nick Clegg = Neil Kinnock!
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Oh, for God's sake quit your moaning. All I ever hear from you people is arguing and whining like you're the only people that have ever been frustrated or are in pain.
I stood on a platform a decade ago and argued for change. Now, I've touched on personal development in here and you people are just as much if not more deaf.
I linked to an article on educational achievement, as if anyone cared. You should because it gets to the heart of why the British are losers.
Gordon "gets it". You don't. Period.
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Anyone else seen "Downfall"? With Hitler (well-known war-time leader) ranting in his bunker...sound familiar?
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Will someone please end Browns reign.
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But then, the next 12 months look like being as unpredictable as the last 12.
It's very predictable. The ostrich in charge will continue to borrow... and borrow...and borrow,,, and borrow until, at some point within the next 12 months NO ONE will lend to us any more.
At that point, the UK will be bust. At that point democracy (or what is left of it even now) will be 'suspended. See Argentina for the outcome.
Oh, by the way, Nick, I hope the ermine was worth it in the uprising that follows.
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sagamix @167 wrote:
"better still, let's have a cast iron rule that white middle class men are barred from any position of power and authority "
Quite right! All our leaders should be upper class aristocrats.
Oh - did I misunderstand you?
I did?
I see.... so you want us to be represented and lead by people of the moral and intellectual calibre of John Presscot and Speaker Martin.
Mods: what, exactly, in this post has broken House Rules?
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sicilian @ 169 and open @ 172
forget the "no more white middle class men" comment, that's just me going for effect, rather than a literal proposition - my point is that the people in senior positions in the likes of banks, political parties, big companies, the police, the army and sundry other very important walks of life are not fit for purpose - they get there for the wrong reasons - they're mostly white, middle class and male but by no means all of them are - the whole thing needs a jolly good shaking up - what's REALLY GOOD about this crisis of capitalism is that we can all see this now, can't we? - we see the truth, at long last, and so it just might lead to the radical change we need so badly - if it doesn't, if we don't see a revolution in how we think and act, then (like I said before) forget it
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max @ 211
you haven't broken any house rules - all you've done is deliberately misunderstand my post and that's in no way a crime - happens all the time and I'm pretty used to it!
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A velvet revolution is brewing in this country.
British style orderly protests followed by newspaper attacks will finally get rid of this evil regime.
Remember 1983? Will the last person to leave turn out the lights. Labour has finally brough us to the edge of disaster and bankrupcy that the whole nation feared 25 years ago.
We will only take so much as a nation and then we'll start throwing shoes, handbags and ballot papers at this unworthy Govt.
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Spain proposed changes to immigration laws yesterday to limit an influx of foreigners as it faces recession and the highest unemployment rate in the European Union.
The measures, which must be approved by Parliament, would allow police to hold illegal immigrants for up to 60 days pending deportation and make it harder for foreigners to bring relatives over to live in Spain.
"In our difficult current situation, decisions have been taken to adapt immigration levels to the labour market," Labour Minister Celestino Corbacho told a news conference following a Cabinet meeting on the reform.
Nearly five million immigrants have settled in Spain during the past decade, more than in any other European country, drawn by a construction boom that has collapsed in the global financial crisis.
With unemployment expected to end the year at 13 per cent and rise as high as 20 per cent by 2010.
That is why Brown is on the up-beat, and so he should be, cause our situation is not as bad as that of other countries in Europe.
Good night Nick.
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Post 215 onlyway up
Talk about clutching at straws mate!
In fact it's grabbing a straws....to no effect!
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sagamix @213,
I thought it was because I wrote words with positive connotations such as 'moral' and 'intellectual' in conjunction with words of, um, lesser value, such as Prescott and Martin.... ;-)
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With all due respect, Brown couldn't catch a cold.
And now he's broke, so he's flogged our stake in AWE for a few quick quid. Marvellous.
Notably announced on the site of the American company who bought it for a song. *Not*in Parliament, not even sneaked out in a Ministerial written reply.
What an absolute shower.
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# 215:
The only way is down I'm afraid. The real unemployment figures apparently have been hidden by statistics but they're approaching 7 million according to very recent research and they're set to rise even further.
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The fact is that crises can either make or break a leader. Looking back one wonders what might have happened had Argentina chosen not to invade the Falklands - I seem to recall that before that point her popularity in the polls was on the wane.
I am not a Labour supporter (a fact true for all 8 general elections i have been able to vote); however, I do feel that the experience of Brown at the Treasury makes him the right man for the job. And a major factor in how well the UK does recover is the level of confidence we have in our businesses and in our future. The steps has taken so far, in conjunction with other world leaders, seem to have stemmed the tide of financial collapse, but I wonder if he will sustain the rise in popularity when some of the major retailers go bust and unemployment begins to soar. I do hope so but only time will tell!
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Nick, your column would make so much more sense if you stopped trying to find ways to make out that the "beloved leader" was actually doing anything right. He's sending us towards national bankruptcy, Argentina style. His policies are the CAUSE of these problems, and his "solutions" are going to make things worse. The media (esp. BBC) need to read some history, government intervention is BAD NEWS during a recession - FDR's interventions in the 30's made the depression longer - Browns are in danger of sending us down the same route. This government needs to be castigated for it's lack of preparedness, its immense hubris, its disdain for democracy, free speech, and a thousand other ways in which they have destroyed the Britain that I knew. The BBC are implicated - start being impartial, please!
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At 8:43pm on 20 Dec 2008, Charles_E_Hardwidge wrote:
It's from a man who has already lost his job and is trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sort of help from a government who purports to feel our pain.
Oh, for God's sake quit your moaning. All I ever hear from you people is arguing and whining like you're the only people that have ever been frustrated or are in pain.
===
How compassionate of you, Charles.
===
I stood on a platform a decade ago and argued for change. Now, I've touched on personal development in here and you people are just as much if not more deaf.
===
That would be the noise of the trains going past your platform!
And finally, to end as you end your diatribes,
Zen.
Thank you & goodnight.
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So delighted that Brown is having such a good time. When he has managed to ruin what was the best pendion scheme in the world, spent more on projects that delivereed little. I drove through France, Spain, and Ireland and their roads are in great order, whilst ours are full of potholes, uneven and being dug up.The price of electricity is half what we pay, food is cheaper their schools are better, their hospitals are sparkling. HMM... so glad Gordon is looking so happy. He and his merry bunch have borrowed, borrowed and borrowed and now we HAVE to borrow to try and get out of our current mess. People are not stupid, we know that there is wolrd problem but whilst others put money away Brown did not, and this affects our capacity to weather the storm. He will not be looking so chipper when he sees the recent poll result. It pays to keep your eye on the ball Nick, most people are not having a good recession, and they do know who has put us in a worse position than other countries. Those that have been frugal and saved are taking huge punishment, and all that seems important is how much better Gordon looks. How shallow.
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Now that the YANKS are sending up to
30000 extra service personnel to
Afghanistan,one wonders how soon
our Deluded PM on his Messianic
Crusade will follow suit in eagerness.
Now that he is attempting to MIMIC
Churchill he will know no bounds.
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I don't agree with most of the responses. Alot of them are probably from people who enjoyed the boom and benefitted from investment in schools and hospitals. Few politicians are likable, but at least Brown is a internationally respected economist which is kind of what we need right now. I'm sure he has some bad points, but I remember the conservative governments and they had MPs in prison for various pocket-lining ventures. Not what we need right now
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#207 Charles_E_Hardwidge wrote:
"It's from a man who has already lost his job and is trying, unsuccessfully, to get some sort of help from a government who purports to feel our pain.
Oh, for God's sake quit your moaning. All I ever hear from you people is arguing and whining like you're the only people that have ever been frustrated or are in pain.
I stood on a platform a decade ago and argued for change.... I linked to an article on educational achievement, as if anyone cared. You should because it gets to the heart of why the British are losers."
Me: The British are losers? Maybe, because education just doesn't happen. Check how many people gain good science degrees (including the ability to write in a grammatical manner) in India compared with the UK.
You: Gordon "gets it". You don't. Period."
Gordon gets it? We - the electorate - don't understand that great intellect? The guy who majored in history, but believes he's the economic genious of the 21st Century?
Or maybe we all fall short compared to your vision?
What platform did you stand on?
Do you really believe that a nation that could produce real scientists and technology is suddenly unable to deliver as it could?
I don't.
I believe that the UK could do an awful lot more than we do at present. But I don't see a lot of New Labour stimulus to invest in new technology.
Bugger the games stuff. There are many IT solutions that could benefit from a "games" approach.
But it would be good to have any government which tried to develop new skills without making a fuss about it.
In fact, I'd like governments to be there, fairly quiet, not taking too much in taxation without a proper explanation of what they plan to do with money. NOT a bunch of folk who imagine that they know better than people who work at the social, commercial or industrial coal-face.
I've stood on platforms. Nice to be a bit higher than the listeners.
But I listened.
Helped me get a decent perspective in quite a lot of countries. And made me realise that the current approach to education, economics and politics just ain't the best.
But, if I disagree with you, that makes me a whining brat.
Funny, really. I only ever worked with big companies. (European, US, UK...) Tried to get them to behave as though they were corner shops, with a real connection to customers.
Never, ever, wanted a close link with government.
Gordon "gets it".
When did that happen?
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#212 sagamix wrote:
sicilian @ 169 and open @ 172
"forget the "no more white middle class men" comment, that's just me going for effect, rather than a literal proposition - my point is that the people in senior positions in the likes of banks, political parties, big companies, the police, the army and sundry other very important walks of life are not fit for purpose - they get there for the wrong reasons - they're mostly white, middle class and male but by no means all of them are - the whole thing needs a jolly good shaking up - what's REALLY GOOD about this crisis of capitalism is that we can all see this now, can't we? - we see the truth, at long last, and so it just might lead to the radical change we need so badly - if it doesn't, if we don't see a revolution in how we think and act, then (like I said before) forget it"
Saga. I have no idea where you have worked in your career.
Revolution can happen in small ways and big ways.
It's hard to understand where you're coming from. China - the last Communist state (ignoring North Korea and Cuba, who are simply anachronistric foot-notes of history) has embraced a capitalistic approach.
If bankers screwed up - which I believe they did, really big time - it doesn't mean that the "normal" capitalist approach has failed.
What radical change would you like?
Going back to a barter society?
That's really going to help single Mums with 6 children by (probably) 4 or more male assistants... although they probably wouldn't really know.
You don't like banks who did stupid things?
Nor do I.
But I can't see a viable alternative to a capitalist approach. I sell my time, as part of being an employee. What do you do?
Make it work better? Absolutely.
Make politicians more aware that taking money away fom people comes with the demand that they spend it more sensibly? Right on.
Not sure where you're coming from.
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#226 dragbert wrote:
"I don't agree with most of the responses. Alot of them are probably from people who enjoyed the boom and benefitted from investment in schools and hospitals. Few politicians are likable, but at least Brown is a internationally respected economist which is kind of what we need right now."
Sorry.
Brown is NOT an economist. Never been trained in that discipline. Never had any experience in that arena.
I just don't get the notion that Brown has any reason to be respected for his management of the UK economy.
How do you feel about the idea that we - tax-payers - have doubled our indebtedness within a single 12 month period?
If you borrowed GBP 100K to buy a house, then found out you owed GBP 200K, would you believe it was a good thing?
Look at the UK level of indebtedness. Too depressing? But Government debt has doubled. Which means we - and our children - will have to pay it back.
"International acclaim"?
Who, exactly, is following Gordon's path?
I don't see any European country having to -or wanting to - do the same thing.
Brown's an historian. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of people have run the Treasury with no prior experience of economics.
But what they projected was a political sense - not the impression that they were economists.
Remember that ballderdash that Ed Balls wrote for him and Brown parroted in the House? "Post neoclassical endogenous growth theory"...
We pay these clowns to do things.
I don't care which party they come from, or which "direction" (Left, Right, Centre) they espouse.
Just get a bit of delivery into government and it would make people a little more interested in society.
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Blinking heck, Nick. Brown looks relaxed and in control? Not a bit of it, he's hanging on to his .govuk podium for all he's worth. His knees are buckling and the smile is really a grimace, the eyes are squinting against the pain of having to read the latest financial and unemployment figures. The unclothed emperor is desperate to believe in his own mantra... ' I'm saving the world' whilst plugging his ears and singing 'la la la' so he can't hear the German finance ministers et al telling us all that his borrowing spree is definately the wrong road to be travelling down.
Just look at how grey he's gone, both hair and facial skin have a strange hue about them. That's not a sign of relaxation , that's a sign of someone near the end of their tether.
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It makes sense to me that confidence is an absolute prerequisite for recovery. Confidence to work hard and trust that the fruits of your labour (no pun intended) won't be squandered, confidence to invest, confidence to save, etc.
But how can there be any confidence when the government spins, lies, guards and hides key indicators, covers up failure and never accepts responsibility or leads by example?
Until we have transparent government that speaks simple truths, listens and answers, then we can have no confidence that that which we are being asked to fight for is actually worth fighting for. Truth might be painful, and it might be scary, but until we face it, own it and deal with it then we can never hope to start to feel better.
Telling the truth is not talking down the economy or the country. Allowing half truths and lies to foster false confidence is just cruel as the pain will be much worse when reality finally kicks in.
The British spirit is not dead, it's just battered by years of sleaze and lies, and drugged by false prophets selling something for nothing and a buy now pay later attitude. Labour can deny responsibility and try more and more of failed policies to postpone the inevitable, but the sooner we face facts, take responsibility for past mistakes and work together to fix things then the sooner we can start the recovery.
We were promised leadership. Instead we blindly followed greedy bankers into a huge mess. How hollow Labour's boastful claims of prudence and wisdom seem now. It's time for them to get out of the way.
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The printing money bit really scares me.
It's bad enough that the current working generation is going to have to work hard to repay our collective indebtedness for years or even decades to come. But in a way, collectively we voted for this government not once but three times, so we deserve to pick up the tab for their neglect and mismanagement.
It's worse that if we don't get a grip and stop spending money we haven't earned then we subject the next working generation to penury as well, and they don't even have a vote yet.
But if we start printing money willy nilly to dilute the value of all this debt, then we just destroy the retirement of the last working generation, who, whilst they too may have voted for this government, cannot roll up their sleaves and start working again.
Let's work with what we've got. Stop writing cheques we can't cash. Build some real value into our economy and stop looking to finance for a free lunch. Any money that money makes is always made at the expense of somebody else's hard work or it is a temporary illusion as much of today's wealth has proved to be.
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Brown an economist?
Is this the same Brown who ended boom and bust?
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# 226 dragbert
You are kidding ... aren't you?
http://tinyurl.com/8g48q2
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I've chewed through a few books on photography over the past week, and have just been skimming through one on film directing. "The Director's Idea: The Path to Great Directing" by Ken Dancyger contains a chapter on "The Great Director" that helps us take an angle on Gordon Brown's leadership. It's notable that both Kubrick and Chaplain have a similar personality type to Gordon Brown.
* The great director looks for a deep subtextual interpretation of the text.
* The great director prefers a direct approach to the material, a simple approach, an economical approach.
* The audacity of the interpretation transforms the experience from simple to surprising.
(The previous comment was deleted as it contained a relatively large extract. I've trimmed it down to these three bullet points. It will have to do.)
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My previous comment (78) has been referred to the moderators, so is this what follows when you try to post something different?
"There has been a problem...
Your comment contains some HTML that has been mistyped.
Data at the root level is invalid on line 1"
NOTE: My comment contained NO HTML whatsoever nevermind some that had been mistyped.
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The aptly named 'Brown Rollercoaster' has come off the rails.
He is the driver who removed one of the wheels because he had imagined he had put an end to 'boom and bust'. When the vehicle crashed, he as the driver does not accept the explaination of the accident investigators, but would rather blame others for his mistake despite it being proved his removal of the wheel caused the catastrophic derailment.
I am afraid Brown is now beginning to look like an absolute figure of fun in the World outside the UK. In Germany he has become a figure of fun. They are an astute nation that made provision for the 'rainey day' with the second strongest reserves in the World. They cannot believe the absolute insane approach of a dysfunctional British Government. They cannot believe his policies defy pure logic. They believe he has lost it.
Frankly, his policies are now so reckless they border on deliberate financial vandalism.
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# 226:
Brown 'an Internationally renowned and respected economist.' That comment beggars belief. The man has single handedly helped to muck up our present and our future although I concede the fault is not entirely his. Time will tell but I don't think your words will in any way prove to be prophetic. I will nevertheless bookmark your remarks should I for some unknown reason be proved to be wrong.
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#229 fairlyopenmind wrote:
We pay these clowns to do things.
I don't care which party they come from, or which "direction" (Left, Right, Centre) they espouse.
Just get a bit of delivery into government and it would make people a little more interested in society.
-----------
I don't care about their political party either.
Now I'll leave all you party political diehards and moderators with something else to think about. Think about HEALTH. Think about YOUR health, and that of other family members and friends. And while you are at it give a little thought about the health of the nation and indeed, of manking itself. The reason, some politicians don't appear to care, but they can certainly talk, and talk, and talk...... And then there are all those public servants - who don't serve the public, but taken all together can screw up YOUR HEALTH & YOUR LIFE.
There have long been, it apprears, those in Britain who listen, but do not hear, and those who say they will listen, but who do not. Talk is cheap, health care is not BUT PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE, particularly when a cure can not be produced and results in the management of symptoms at best and a much reduced standard of living plus a reduced lifespan into the bargain.
Man has but a short time to live.... and we are paying those making it even shorter and more pain-filled. There's nothing quiet like being kept in the dark and fed on manure, just like mushrooms.......
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re 237
chuck, do you mean all three of them lived in a fantasy world?
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The truth is Madelson was brought in because Brown et al are totally useless.
But then you have to ask the question - is it right for an unelected person of dubious character to be making the decisions.
Who would have thought Brown would ever have Mandy in his inner circle.
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So now its INTEREST on SOCIAL
FUND LOANS
JUST LIKE THE 10 pence TAX Band
HIT THE POOREST WHERE IT HURTS.
WELL DONE NEW LABOUR!!
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# 219 sicilian29
You're reading the Daily Mail again!
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#237
Yet more irrelevant tosh Charles.
Which chaplain are you referring to, a prison Chaplain? Or Charlie Chaplin? Who directed "The Great Dictator" a film that:
First released in October 1940, it bitterly satirizes Nazism and Adolf Hitler, culminating in an overt political plea to defy fascism. He describes them in the film as "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts"
Actually, yes, you might have something there after all Charles!!
Zen.
;-)
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241. Government is not interested in society or we would not have the fragmentation, crime, segregation, ghetto areas, drug and alcohol additiction, benefit culture, greed, obesity..............................etc.
This has occured during Labour's watch and they have ignored.
Mostly though they have turned a blind eye, if indeed they even were interested, in the millions coming into this country from abroad unchecked and with nothing to offer, purely coming here for their own greedy and health needs.
If we were to emigrate to another country we would be required to give proof of a hefty monthly income (not including lum sums or investments) and to pay for medical insurance. If we went in as an entrepreneur we would have to give proof after two years that we had employed a certain amount of nationals and that our turnover was the amount that country stipulated.
Here, people come in, drain our resources, get FREE health care - no wonder the self esteem and health of our indigenous peoples is at rock bottom.
Labour has - and always will or would - ruin us, economically and socially.
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#226 dragbert
Perish the thought we could have an unelected Business Secretary and de facto Deputy Prime minister appointed by an unelected Prime Minister who had already resigned TWICE from ministerial positions in shame, due to mortgage fraud and the Hinduja brothers passport affair, that wouldn't be tolerated by you would it dragbert?!
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237 seems to be back on Labour's payroll. They must be desperate.
They really are afraid of the opposition, you can tell by the tremour in its leader's voice at PMQs.
Likening him to some figure in the past will not do, Matey, we British do not like what we SEE.
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It seems that the Home (Economics) Secretary Jacqui Smith has so few friends she has to bribe her husband with £40,000 per year to write nice letters about her!
"Home Secretary Jacqui Smith?s husband has been unmasked as the author of a letter-writing campaign defending the Government to her local newspaper ? without revealing that they are married.
Richard Timney has had a series of angry letters published in the Redditch Advertiser in Worcestershire attacking the Tories over schools and backing Ms Smith?s controversial identity-cards plan.
But he conveniently neglected to point out that his wife Ms Smith, 46, MP for the marginal seat of Redditch and a former Schools Minister, was responsible for both policies. Nor did he say that he is paid £40,000 a year as her Commons adviser."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1099177/Dear-Mr-Editor-That-Jacqui-Smith-doing-fabulous-job-HUSBAND-writes-newspaper.html
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107 kingsrgs.
You say that you are a student, you clearly have a long way to go.
Do you believe that the level of employment should be determined by market forces?
Do you believe that 30 years of neoliberalism has played any role in our current economic plight?
Do you believe that a single British politician should decide where everyone should be employed, and also determine their wages, conditions etc?
You are clearly not a student of politics if you are unaware that the governing party was elected until 2010. Do you think Her Majesty's First Minister should take the slightest notice of a rag bag of half-baked right leaning loonies calling for an election on a daily basis like a bunch of demented parrots?
/
/
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215, This is relative. Our situation not as bad as Europe? I don't think so!
Come and live here in London and see what a hellish foreign country its become.
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I think we've all realised there was no Labour economic miracle. It was all based on one thing house price inflation. The price of your house went up so you bought a bigger one, but you didn't use all the "profit" on the last one to to put down as a deposit, some of it went on white goods feeding back into the economy. So you owed more. One other thing Labour did was not to build enough houses which meant there was a restriction on supply which meant more house price inflation. In short a great big Pyramid scheme. This was okay whilst there was always people coming into the market borrowing ever bigger sums of money and pumping it in at the bottom. Once they stopped coming in it all fell down like all pyramid schemes. Added to that the ability to borrow 125% it's a reciepe for disaster. Yes there were few of these morgages but they fed the into the housing boom. This sounds like Tulip Mania.
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I am sorry Nick but this post demonstrates that you are spending too much time in the Westminster bubble.
The simple reality is that people are scared and so cleave to the devil they know rather than seek change.
This will change as soon as they begin to realise the depth of this recession (slump).
The government is playing a double game of eye-catching initiatives and underhand cuts. They have to do this otherwise the cuts would become too obvious.
We are in trouble, serious trouble, Brown and his gang know it and are sloshing taxpayer funds about in a sordid attempt to fool the taxpayer. This will work for a time in which they have been assisted by a truly lacklustre Tory frontbench.
However, it won't last once Easter has come. Presentation skills are useless before the realities of debt, grinding poverty and desparation.
Did you, does anyone in the Labour party know that grinding poverty has a unique smell about it? You should all try it sometime.
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It seems WE are ALL sleepwalking in to
THE NEW DARKAGES following our
MESSIANIC LEADER OVER THE
PRECIPICE into ECONOMIC and
SOCIAL OBLIVION.
WELL DONE GORDY.
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No151 cheesedoff
You seem a little confused. Calling for massive cuts in government expenditure and at the same time drawing attention to the obvious need for public investment in our crumbling infrastructure is hardly a credible argument.
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247 Flamepatricia.
The single market policy, a flagship policy of Mrs Thatcher, provides for the free movement of labour between members of the EU. Do you believe in free trade?
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Gordan's gang is going down...going down...going down
GOOD RIDDANCE!!!!!
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Makes me laugh all of these Tory writers --selective memories-I remember15% interest rates ,John Major and Coco lamont running around like headless chickens as we got booted out of the ERM -
(I lost my job then )
Brown is too serious and grumpy, now he's grinning, ill fitting suits, indecisive,now too bold
Yes I want Mr Camaroon and OZZY they're real heavy weights.
-so it's only in Britain we are having a recession?
The US is shrinking dramatically-Germany is in real trouble (despite having manufacturing to "save" them)--don't even mention Spain Ireland and sad old Italy.
Don't any of you read the Economist? Or is it too left wing for you? Look at their anaysis for next year.....
I seem to recall all the Tory kids mantra--TOO MUCH RED TAPE TOO MUCH RED TAPE
RESTRICTING ENTERPRISE RESTRICTING ENTERPRISE DEREGULATE DEREGULATE
well we now see what happens when you let the global banks and the free market horrors in the financial services rip (worldwide by the way not just in Ingerland)
Has Brown made made mistakes? Absolutely-he should be hung for the pensions dividends fiasco, the 10p tax nonsense,the micro managing of benefits-oh and the 75p pension increase
but the world wide recession?-
he is showing bottle and decisiveness at least a degree of Economic understanding beyond that of the Daily Mail House price crash stuff.
There. I feel better. I just got sick of all the one way stuff. He's not perfect-he's made some cock ups-but the recession?
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Brown has completely lost it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7794224.stm
The government (rightly) make a fuss over the poorest having to pay the most for energy (on prepay).
Now they are promoting the poorest being made to pay the highest possible interest rates on emergency loans!!
I don't beleive anyone could support labour unless they were being paid to...
The BBC have an intersting piece on Browns mental state here (well worth watching) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7663563.stm.
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"An illegal immigrant who tried to flee Britain six times by stowing away on cargo ships leaving Avonmouth keeps getting caught and being made to stay.
Rashid Ali made the escape attempts by hiding in boats bound for his native Morocco over a period of more than four years.
After his fifth attempt to return home, Ali, 30, was held in a detention centre for three years at a cost to the taxpayer of £250,000.
But the Home Office still failed to repatriate him - and two days after being released he was nabbed hiding yet again on another boat.
At a hearing at Bristol Crown Court, a judge vowed to "kick some backsides" and said: "The sooner he gets back to Morocco the better for everybody"
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Immigrant-trying-flee-UK-stay/article-554706-detail/article.html
That's £250,000 WASTED on one individual, an illegal immigrant who wants to return home, but the Home Office wont let him.
Tell me this is joined up government, not a complete waste of OUR money.
From our "not fit for purpose" Home Office.
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POST 250 Yellow Belly
Amazing is this true??
If so: RESIGNATION!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nick,
I am not sure whether you have lost your bearings or your marbles!
Where did all the (s)tuff about comparing Brown positively with wartime leaders come from? The Brown propaganda machine?
If you had compared Brown with Stalin, I think you would be nearer the mark!!
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fairly @ 228
not sure where you're coming from
a meritocracy, I suppose, is what I'm driving at, although I don't like the word because it sounds a bit fascist, doesn't it? - my point is, our main problem is that the wrong sort of people are running things - talentless, empty suits in the main, right? - yeah, that is right and it's because the qualities required to make it are, inter alia ... obsessional single mindedness, aggression plus superficial charm, sharpness as opposed to intellect, and a winning rather than a sharing mentality - in our system, integrity isn't an asset, it's a handicap! - so until this changes, WE ARE GOING DOWN - plenty of people pay lip service to the need for a more equal, meritocratic, fairer society but I believe in it and, if we don't evolve in that direction, I will be quite disappointed - this very grave economic crisis makes it more likely, I feel, that others will start to think the same as me and, on that score, I am pleased with what's happening - the anglo american capitalist model has really hit the skids this time, hasn't it? - or, to mix my metaphors, it's gotten awfully sick and I'm hoping it's terminal
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#263 alexandercurzon
It certainly is true, follow the link.
you couldn't make it up!
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What has happened to my post no.129 from 20th December. Criticism of the quality (or absence of it) of a blog by Mr Robinson cannot be a reason for non acceptance, however frequent such criticism may be. Surely I should have received an email by now stating why it has been moderated or it should have been accepted. I await your response.
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# 260:
You're absolutely right. He's not totally rsponsible for The UK Recession. He is however one of the chief contributors.
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Yeah come on Brown admit it, for once, that you have got it wrong. Despite the VAT reduction, despite the so called fiscal stimulous the outlook is more gloomy.
The rest of the world says you are doing wrong, yet you cannot see it, only you are right.
Mark my words, the Unions will be out on strike soon.
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Nick,
Instead of parroting Labour propaganda, I wish you would do some real analysis.
According to the Bank of England, equity withdrawals from the housing market have averaged £45 billion a year, or about 3% of GDP (check it out for yourself on the Bank of England website).
Questions you might care to ask Gordon Brown / NuLabour and the Bank of England are:
1) What would UK GDP growth have looked like had these housing equity withdrawals not occurred? How would our economic record then compare with other G7 nations?
2) Given that these withdrawals have been consistently high since 1999, is it correct to believe that it was a DELIBERATE policy by NuLabour? It certainly looks like it!!
3) A third of a TRILLION pounds has been withdrawn from the UK housing market since 1999. That is about 8% of the value of UK private housing stock at end of 2007, or over 25% of mortgage lending. If one looks back at 1997 prices and assumes similar lending ratio (i.e. 30% of the value of UK housing stock), equity withdrawals accounted for about 25% of the value of UK housing stock at 1997 prices and c.85% of mortgage lending!!!! Does NuLabour / the Bank of England believe that to have been prudent?
(Sources: Bank of England statistics, Halifax Building Society and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7183551.stm)
4) Now that housing equity withdrawals fallen off a cliff this year, and were NEGATIVE in the last quarter, it's payback time for Gordon Brown's "smoke and mirrors trick" economy! Shouldn't NuLabour and the Bank of England apologise for their gross mismanagement of the economy?
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post 270
Apoligise ?No they should be on
trial.
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# 245:
Actually found these hidden figures courtesy of an Internet search.
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Another party political on behalf of the Labour Party by Robinson. I hope the Tories dismantle the Beeb when they get in.
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# 245:
Here is a link on unemployment figures:
http://www.radstats.org.uk/no079/webster.htm
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just been drinking in a pub in central london, 2 labour mp,s can,t believe your gordon browns lapdog, and they were saying they,re standing down at the next election as they haven,t a chance of winning there seats, the only reason they didn,t get rid of gb was they haven,t got anyone to lead the party.
With more people losing there jobs , nick will you turn out the lights to save GB money on his electricty bill. Is it true that your after a job with GB.
Be gladwhen he,s gone, he got in through the back door, when nothern rock failed , why weren,t the alarm bells ringing in the government, GB is a total failure
The boys on the front line
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What is left of our economy is in dire straits, and it needs a miracle to fix. My problem with this administration is the ' pull the wool over the eyes' method of governing. The PM has not obviously gone to see the level of damage this type of governing has done to communities up and down the land. It would seem that he has surrounded himself with the same advisors as Blair did, And all they told was how wonderful he was, and not much else. Your article does not apear to have the same cringing level of bias as normal, but as that is a charge you cannot escape from, its inevitable that some would accuse you thus. What YOU must understand is that GBs' days in office are numbered due to Labour having been in power too long, and obviously running out of ideas. This is painfully apparent, so why can you not see this?
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jimmymk 260
Selective memories.
Yes on the labour side as well.
Labour nearly bankrupted us in the 70's, Healey going cap in hand to the IMF to bail us out. 1983 the last true Labour Manifesto. It seems that Labour can "change" but the Torries are never allowed to change, they are always the Torries of 15% interest rates.
Labour - no to Europe
Labour - unilateral nuclear disarmourment
Labour - Nationalise everything.
The only thing that hasn't changed is their ability to turn a good economy into a failing one , given enough time.
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Liam Halligan's comment in today's Sunday Telegraph puts some reality in the spin manipulated world we live in.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/3870090/US-Feds-foolhardiness-is-of-more-concern-than-deflation.html
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270 browned off
Either they did not know what they were doing. In which case they are useless, and criminally negligent.
Or they knew what they were doing and where gambling on things holding together a little bit longer. In which case they are useless, and criminally negligent.
I find it particularly irritating when sir alan sugar is reported as saying that brown was angry with the banks for concealing things from him or words to that effect. The IMF said some considerable time ago that things were getting out of hand. If I can see the problem and read about the IMF opinion then I am sure brown can.
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Nick are you seeing Polly from the Grundian on the side. Is she your mole?
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Wanted job as described in 250, that is similar to Jacqui Smith's husband. If you know of one that's going please let me know.
I did enquire about how to get on the BBC Trust panel - remember the Ross and Brand debacle - but you have to be recommended to the Queen by government ministers. I wonder who gets those jobs.
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#265 sagamix
OK. I can see where you're coming from. Don't have any issues with the approach, but it does get a bit complex, doesn't it?
I don't think there is a genuine Anglo/ American attitude to "capitalism". Maybe in the early years of the last century, there was little difference (actually, pretty little difference across Europe at that time).
The attitudes have been fairly distinct post WWII. A lot of Americans still think that "social" ownership or service provision is the slippery slope to communism. (Having been back and forth to the old USSR, I can't think of a more elitist way of governing a people, but that's not the point...)
Problem is to define what "merits" are sought to select people who'd run a "meritocracy".
Plenty of guys in the USA came from nowhere, used their abilities to build and run good businesses. Some were / are in touch with a sense of society. (Bill Gates came from a well-heeled background, but is placing a huge chunk of his worth into projects to help people with health or other issues.)
"obsessional single mindedness, aggression plus superficial charm, sharpness as opposed to intellect, and a winning rather than a sharing mentality - in our system, integrity isn't an asset, it's a handicap!"
Suppose you've got to choose a person to run a state-owned company. You get a bunch of applicants with relevant skills, capabilities etc. But you want to ensure that the products or services keep evolving to deliver what the consumers / citizens need. So who do you choose?
Probably the one with an obsessional single-mindedness, able to achieve aggressive objectives by charming co-workers, sharp enough to understand the practicalities (not just the intellectual possibilities), etc.
I've worked with and for some real a***holes who got stuff done, were hated by the staff, but were sadly missed when they retired. Not because they'd been loved (although their families loved them), but because in retrospect people recognised what they'd managed to achieve for a company.
The old grammar schools may have been divisive, but they allowed a great swathe of people to emerge into public life (by which I mean the corporate as well as the political spheres).
If you think we're insufficiently meritocratic, check France. Almost all senior people in politics and business went through their "Ecoles Superieurs". Makes the old UK "Oxbridge connection" look like a waste of time...
I've always been curious about just who gets to pick the people who "represent the meritocracy". There's no magic solution!
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The mods here don't seem to like something I have written (an re-written a number of times):
Is it that I reminded everyone that Nick (and his ilk) concealed the fact that Kennedy had a drink problem?
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The mods here don't seem to like something I have written (an re-written a number of times):
Or is it that I suggested that (on their past record) Nick (and his ilk) would probably conceal any current problem with the PM.
Not that I am suggesting that there is a problem -- just reminding people that if there were, they wouldn't hear about it here.
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Nick, you say "Gordon Brown is increasingly adopting the tone and language of a war time leader."
Nothing could be further from the truth!
In terms of our negotiations with with the EU, Brown capitulates at every opportunity. The so-called red lines and opt outs that Brown has 'secured' on the EU constitutional treaty are as worthless as the piece of paper Neville Chamberlain had in his hand after returning from Munich in 1938.
Brown has also given our rebate away, getting nothing in return.
We should recall that whereas Churchill abolished peacetime ID cards, Brown wants to reintroduce them. Brown has turned the country into a surveillance society, where even opposition MPs can be banged up for daring to criticize the government.
Brown is no Churchill. The sooner Brown is given the 'order of the boot', the better.
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Brown a war time leader, HA HA HA HA.
I wonder how many of our troops would like to tell them what they think of him has he walks round Iraq all smiles and saying what a great job they are doing. If he means what he says give those troops in Iraq and Afganistan what they need to fight his wars. Vest's, radios etc.
Brown could not run a tap.
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#283
The 'grandes ecoles' are nothing if not meritocratic, requiring, as they do, exceptional qualifications from entrants and producing, as they do, exceptionally well qualified technocrats, inter alia.
England would probably not be in such a deep hole if it had avowedly elite establishments of that type. The fact that they produce a truly valuable elite does not mean to say that they are only for those who already belong to the upper echelons. Far from it. Equality of opportunity is a founding principle of the French state. What are the founding principles of the UK state? What, you mean you have not got any principles? What a surprise.
Educational dumbing down has not served you very well. With UK government debt of 650 billion pounds sterling (44.2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product) and rising (to as much as 57 per cent in due course, one understands) and UK consumer debt of no less than 1.4 trillion pounds sterling, you could certainly do with a few products of the grandes ecoles in your central-government administration rather than the self-satisfied and complacent muddle-heads who are intent upon digging you into an even deeper hole.
The demise of Anglo-American capitalism may or may not definitively lead in the anglophone world to the "New Capitalism" referred to in Robert Peston's downloadable little essay on the subject, but the talk in Scotland is currently of the liability that the UK state has become. Of course, you will not take that seriously. All you pukka sahibs know best, don't you. Keep digging, then.
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Wartime leader , so that would be Stalin then !
Now lets see who could be Goebbels then hmmm I wonder....
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A lot of people say you're Brown's poodle - they call you 'toenails'. I think they're right. It's hard to take you seriously when you seem to be the only one puffing up Gordon Brown. I remember when you worked for ITV - you were sharper then. It's a pity youve changed since working for the BBC.
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Are their any women who would like to go on Wife swap with Gordon Brown? Let see how much of a great leader he is in the home. Now that I would love to see.
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At 11:21am on 21 Dec 2008, braveSouter wrote:
No151 cheesedoff
You seem a little confused. Calling for massive cuts in government expenditure and at the same time drawing attention to the obvious need for public investment in our crumbling infrastructure is hardly a credible argument.
===
braveSouter
would you agree that spending £250,000 on trying to keep an illegal immigrant from LEAVING the UK is a waste of public money?
Wouldn't that £250,000 be better off spent on employing more nurses, police officers, or bullet proof jackets for our troops? Or insulating a school, or one of a thousand other infrastructure projects?
See #262 for details
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Shouldn't our police be non-political?
"Met at war with Tories
You may recall that Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick is the head of Scotland's Yard's counter terrorism operation, and oversaw the arrest of Damian Green MP. The quite bizzare sequence that follows may explain why Mr Quick did not make the shortlist for Met Commissioner:
Today's Mail on Sunday reports that a wedding car hire firm is being run from Mr Quick's home.
Shortly before 2pm he tells the Press Association that the story "is an attempt to undermine an investigation which is legitimate. The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation in a wholly corrupt way, and I feel very disappointed in the country I am living in."
At 15.45 the Conservative party issues this statement in reply: "The Conservative Party played no part whatsoever in the publication of this story. Assistant Commissioner Quick's claims of corruption and intimidation are absurd and wholly untrue. As the officer leading the inquiry into the allegations involving Damian Green, Assistant Commissioner Quick should display objective professionalism and not make baseless, political attacks. He should retract all of his allegations immediately."
A few minutes later Mr Quick issues this statement: "I regret and wish to retract my comment regarding corruption. The comment was made as I was in the act of having to move my family out of our home to a place of safety following the article in today's Mail on Sunday."
===
Dear Mr Quick,
I also feel very disappointed in the country I live in when an opposition MP can be arrested for doing his job, when the police can shoot 7 dum dum bullets into the head of an innocent brazilian electrician on The Tube, and when an innocent man can be hounded by the police in a botched "honeytrap" sting operation resulting in his arrest, charge and subsequent trial.
I hope you agree with me that the people in charge of such acts should be brought to account?
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pk @ 278
the only thing that hasn't changed is their ability to turn a good economy into a failing one, given enough time
not a fair comment - the only type of UK government that could have prevented this mess is one that would have stood fair square against the prevailing mania for credit fuelled, "winner takes it all" excess, rather than real wealth generation, in the private sector - that would have taken far more wisdom and courage than is merited by the lily livered and hypocritical British public, given their collusion with the binge and their "I'm alright Jack" attitude before things took a tumble - what goes around, comes around, I'm afraid, and not before time
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mind @ 283
there's no magic solution!
no there isn't, of course there isn't - if it were easy to resolve, someone would have done it by now, wouldn't they? - for my part, I have a very strong sense that the more we have women running things, the better off we'd be - same goes for minorities of all types - more of those, please, and less of people like Brown, Blair, Cameron, Clegg, King, Goodwin, Davies, Greenspan, Prescott, Bush etc etc ...
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Does it not bring into question the judgement of the head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terror branch to have a business run from his home?
"Questions have been raised over the judgment of Britain?s top anti-terror police chief after it emerged that a wedding car hire business - including one of his own cars - is being run from his home.
Promotional photographs show classic cars parked on the front driveway of the home of Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick.
The business uses former police officers as chauffeurs for the stable of vintage Rolls-Royces.
Mr Quick, who sanctioned the highly controversial arrest of Tory MP Damian Green and the raid on his House of Commons office, has been told to carry out checks on publicity material and internet advertising for the business.
The senior policeman, who is in charge of combating the Al Qaeda threat, even hires out his personal seven-litre 130mph Jensen sports car through the business.
One senior Yard source said: ?Bob Quick needs to ask himself whether he is happy that all this is out and about. There will need to be a review, bearing in mind his position. He needs to review all of this.?
Yard sources admitted that the website and promotional material could pose a threat to his personal safety and said they would look at removing some of the details they contain.
It is understood that Mr Quick did not inform his superiors that the car hire business was being operated from his home.
However, he is not under obligation to do so as it is run by his wife Judith.
The fact that steps are being taken only now to check for security breaches shows that, since he took up his post in March, there has been no thorough and effective assessment of the Assistant Commissioner?s security."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1099168/Security-scare-wedding-car-hire-firm-run-terror-police-chiefs-home.html
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At 6:46pm on 21 Dec 2008, sagamix wrote:
mind @ 283
there's no magic solution!
no there isn't, of course there isn't - if it were easy to resolve, someone would have done it by now, wouldn't they? - for my part, I have a very strong sense that the more we have women running things, the better off we'd be - same goes for minorities of all types - more of those, please, and less of people like Brown, Blair, Cameron, Clegg, King, Goodwin, Davies, Greenspan, Prescott, Bush etc etc ...
===
Yegods, do you mean people like Jacqui Smith, Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper?
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@ 297
do you mean people like Jacqui Smith, Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper?
yes - any or all of those 3 are way preferable to every single one of the guys I listed
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Sagamix 294,
the only thing that hasn't changed is their ability to turn a good economy into a failing one, given enough time
I think that was a fair comment, the point I am making is that labour have spent far to much on public services. There is a limit at which the country can afford. They convinced the country it could have it's cake and eat it. Even when the tax reciepts were strong GB was borrowing ever more (that should have been a warnign sign), and at the same time "cooking the books" with his "economic cycle". When it was clear he had to borrow more and his economic cycle had come to an end he just had it recalculated and lo and behold it fitted with his requirements and he could borrow more. He really believed his own hype that he had eliminated "boom and bust" from the economy. Private Eyes satire of him as Stalin is shocking to close to the truth. In fact this whole nu Labour experiment has so many unpleasent parallels with Fascism or Communism control of the media. I never thought he was a great chancellor, lucky for a while but all luck eventually runs out. History will be the judge Gordon Brown.
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When Brown says that he's personally saved America (ie that he'd told obama what to do and now obama is hanging on his every word and doing everything he says), and that all the problems were created in America, and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with our own economy, it makes you wonder what Obama thinks of him.
Domestically I don't think many people believe anything that Gordon Brown says when he tells us that he's run the UK economy perfectly and that there's nothing we could have done to minimise the effects of a global recession.
Brown's policies of not bothering to regulate the uk financial system for 11 years means that we actually helped create this global recession in the first place (we also helped create the Icelandic collapse; Brown was warned about that years ago but ignored it and just continued to ask Iceland to carry on as they were and to also try to get the uk involved in their mad ratios/processes).
But then added to that is the fact that because he managed to create huge public debt despite a massive long boom, we don't have any money to get us out of the recession which Brown helped to cause.
Brown not only helped create the global recession and the banking crisis, he's also responsible for us not having any money to be able to get out of it.
If he looks relaxed then he's a very sick man, in every sense of the word.
If only the BBC told the truth instead of spinning nothing but labour lies, then the polls would look very very different, and we probably would have had a general election by now or riots in the streets.
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? Common Purpose has for years done brilliant work in forging valuable links between the private, public and voluntary sectors. And it has helped to make better citizens of individuals and institutions.?
Robert Peston, , BBC Business Editor
Since when has a charity for human welfare even , ever used that front for management of human values, since when should any money given to a charity, and being put into social engineering?
What is this, hardly a nobel charity is it?
Now i know exactly where CEH comes from.
Read it and get worried BBC, you are biased, and only "listen" to that agenda.
Nick what is this is it my imagination or is this why "exactly" why our nation is in such a mess?.
Once the public "wake up" run for your political life.
We wont stand for it, and thats what agenda New Labour, & politicicans are in general WILL be seen in full.
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You know based on the comments here, where I've seen the odd one or two supporting Brown and the rest condemning him, I'm finding it hard to reconcile these comments with the polls that say things are close between Labour and the Tories.
I wonder which indicator is dud?
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pk @ 299
sure, some valid points there, but the main problem lay in the private sector - GB's about 20 pc to blame for what's coming our way and the banks, the spivs, the public must cop for the other 80 - long term, though, it's a good thing if it leads to CHANGE - I'm optimistic that it will because I think this slump is going to break all records - imagine how bad you think it's going to be ... okay, well I predict it will be about 5 times worse than that
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302 twoapenny
I agree - the polls really surprise me
Where I live and work I cannot find a single person who thinks Brown is anything more than a liar and an idiot - my job is in a tory seat, but with labour history and full of the 'working man' - not fat bankers or anything of the sort
I figure people in labour heartland mind's must work differently
that or it's something to do with the tories remaining a complete joke and nobody able to fathom that you can vote for other parties
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#302
It may be that plenty of people are telling pollsters that they will vote Labour in the hope that a positive poll showing persuades Gordon Brown to call a General Election, but a lot of them will in actuality vote for ABG, Anybody But gordon.
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brown out, labour out, or the british isles will be a case of last one out turn the lights out!
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#284 Real Truth
No need to keep repeating about drink problems which are well known.
There's this fellow I know (or know of), who has a severe gambling addiction. The more he loses, the more he borrows in order to lose more.
Trouble is, like most addicts, he won't take the first step of admitting he has any problem - it's always the other guys at the same table.
#207 CommEnts_by_tHe_doZEN
Did someone poison your lentils or is this the way of Zen: if my friend's motorcycle breaks down, then that's his business, never mine?
Funny, I usually stay clear of people talking on platforms and hope they don't get on the same carriage as me.
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Would you believe it, I have just been having a look on Sky News website(always have been a BBC man but have got fed up with bias reporting) low and behold sky report that The Archbishop of Canterbury, (you know the sandal wearing leftie one) well he says the Prime Minister's plan to boost spending was like an "addict returning to the drug".
What is all the the more surprising is he said this on BBC Radio 4s Today Programme.
I do hope old Rowan does not end up like Thomas a Becket
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#288. At 4:57pm on 21 Dec 2008, frankly_francophone wrote:
#283
"The 'grandes ecoles' are nothing if not meritocratic, requiring, as they do, exceptional qualifications from entrants and producing, as they do, exceptionally well qualified technocrats, inter alia."
Francophone... The best boss I ever worked for came from a "grand ecole". And the worst (although he tied with a really bright American lady!).
The "ecoles" are highly selective. I'm quite aware of that. And I do realise that many people forgo or significantly defer a "standard" university education in order to try and gain access. Also aware that the "product" is extremely good, from an intellectual and technical perspective.
Totally aware that (forgetting any "piston") people who gain access have genuine intellectual promise.
I've never been against that. It used to be that way in UK Universities. But there is much more "social engineering" now in the UK.
My comments were about "meritocracy".
The fact that you've been through a "grand ecole" doesn't mean you are practically capable. It does mean that you have a high level of competence in a particular discipline. You can have PhD intellect, but absolutely no ability to interact with people. I've worked with quite a few like that. I'm sure you will have found some French, Brit, American - whatever - people like that. If not, you've been very lucky.
I've worked with many people with "non-academic" backgrounds who were incredibly able and delivered enormous benefits to their colleagues and organisations. There have been plenty of people in significant roles in UK politics or business who never even entered the formal educational structure. I consider them to be totally worthy, but it would be hard to measure them on a "provable intellectual achievement" scale.
But who would find it very hard to achieve a significant position in France, as they hadn't accessed the "gandes ecoles" route.
My concern was that it is really hard to detrmine how a "meritocracy" can be measured. It can't just be intellectual. It can't just be practical. So how do you produce a sensible measure. If you have some suggestion, I'd really like to read it.
"England would probably not be in such a deep hole if it had avowedly elite establishments of that type. The fact that they produce a truly valuable elite does not mean to say that they are only for those who already belong to the upper echelons. Far from it. Equality of opportunity is a founding principle of the French state. What are the founding principles of the UK state? What, you mean you have not got any principles? What a surprise."
England had a rather eletist "Oxbridge" establishment for centuries. Delivered lots of Nobel prize winning scientists. And philosophers and mathematicians, etc. In principle we have equality of opportunity. (Actually had it before you guys... We chopped off a monarch's head before you did!)
"Educational dumbing down has not served you very well. With UK government debt of 650 billion pounds sterling (44.2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product) and rising (to as much as 57 per cent in due course, one understands) and UK consumer debt of no less than 1.4 trillion pounds sterling, you could certainly do with a few products of the grandes ecoles in your central-government administration rather than the self-satisfied and complacent muddle-heads who are intent upon digging you into an even deeper hole."
I fear you under-estimate the indebtness of the UK.
I have always argued that educational dumbing down has been a massively stupid decision. If you can convince UK politicians that it is really necessary to accept that people may be born "equal", but in practice
people have different brain-power, I'd vote for any organisation you support!
I'm not in favour of muddle headed politicians. Some of them have qualifications similar to "grand ecole" output, but absolutely no idea of how to work in the world of a "real economy". Seen some similar types during 20+ years working with a French national company...
"The demise of Anglo-American capitalism may or may not definitively lead in the anglophone world to the "New Capitalism" referred to in Robert Peston's downloadable little essay on the subject, but the talk in Scotland is currently of the liability that the UK state has become. Of course, you will not take that seriously. All you pukka sahibs know best, don't you. Keep digging, then."
"Pukka sahib"?
My grandfather spent some time in Afghanistan and India, obviously a very long time ago.
I'd prefer our children to be educated using best Indian practice than the nonsense that is currently peddled in England. I would guess that, if you put a selection of Indian and English students in a room, the people writing the best English would come from the sub-continent.
My French wife would probably - almost certainly - agree. My daughter - studying law at a French University would certainly say so.
I'd say that "merit" can't simply be judged by waving an education qualification. Just don't see too many big French corporations built and run by folk who have a capacity to make money for themselves and their employees by doing good business.
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# 304 tarquin
The problem is that, on the one hand, the Labour Party has reverted to type and shredded the British economy whilst moving us backwards on virtually every indicator you choose to measure against global standards: education, health, relative wealth, GDP per head, productivity, budget deficit, crime, public transport, buildings and roads infrastructure, defence spending ... you name it ... the Labour movement is and always has been utterly incompetent when it comes to economic and social policies and government adminstration. They're useless.
On the other hand, the Tories have, er, tried to be like Labour for the past decade or so because they figured that that would win them votes. No other reason.
We get the politicians we deserve. Consequently, we also now languish in a nation in severe economic and social decline - much worse than any of our peer nations - and a nation whose esteem in the world order of things declines year on year (perhaps apart from our grossly under-resourced but highly professional armed forces).
Who do you blame? The politicians or the great British voting public?
Beats me.
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Whatever. Good Night!
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Is todays report on Bob Quicks allegations about "the Tory machine" proof, if such was needed, that the Met Police is institutionally politicised?
How could the Met work in harmony with a possible Tory government if this is the prevailing view of senior officers?
Gordons Brown's happy demeanour over the financial crisis should not be allowed to mask the other problems created by this Government
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Roller coaster, you sure it ain't the Big dipper Nick, might even be the Plough if he's gone onto saving the solar system.
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#307 fairlopian_tubester
I mention kennedy not because of the problem he had, but because Nick and others kept it secret from us...
If anything simiar happened (say to the PM) would you expect to hear about it from Nick?
The mods have blocked a load of my postings asking about this...
While I am here - Nick - any update on mandleson, oleg and eu tarrifs ?
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To BraveSouter...whatever at 251 - Do you see whats going around you or are you delusional? I dont ever wish to be a student of politics but neither are you. Instead of using your head, keep voting Labour cause your daddy said you should or mom said Tories aren't one of us or Lib Dems are whoopsies. Your reply bought wry smile at my end. It is clear from your side-tracking of my reply, how much you actually understand about macroeconomic positioning, advantages of govt. budget surpluses in tough economic scenario, corporate modus operandi or maximisation of shareholder return. Whenever, Brown has the balls to call an election, he's not getting my vote, like his predecessor did in 1997 (my worst regret at the ballot box till date). You will find more than fruitcakes, cupcakes and right-wing loonies voting either Conservative or perhaps Lib Dem at the first available opportunity - nationally or locally. If all else fails Brown, Labour still has you.......Good luck & Godspeed.
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#309 fairlyopenmind
"My concern was that it is really hard to determine how a "meritocracy" can be measured. It can't just be intellectual. It can't just be practical. So how do you produce a sensible measure?"
By this time at the weekend I have usually dispensed with such questions, having risen from the dinner table some time ago, but your very impressive response to my modest little post requires me to attempt something.
I take it that all states can be assumed to fail to be absolutely meritocratic and can be counted upon to do so no matter what systems they devise with a view, at least in principle, to establishing a meritocratic society. One can ask, however, which kind of constitution is in principle likely to be most successful in establishing structures which will tend to be most effective in producing the desired result and be most susceptible to periodic reforming maintenance to correct defects and imbalances which may be expected to develop so as to become entrenched in unsystematically reformed structures over time.
I would not for a moment wish to suggest that the state which proclaims its faith in liberty, equality and fraternity has achieved everything that it set out to achieve when the first republic was established. I know only too well that, even in a society that sets out to be meritocratic, generational privilege tends to build up and requires to be guarded against by the state if it is to be true to its fine ideals. Nevertheless, while aware, of course, that societies can achieve great social advances without an entrenched written constitution based upon such principles, I believe that what is generally known loosely as a written constitution can provide a mechanism which tends to protect and advance the realization of the meritocratic ideal more reliably and consistently than does a less rationally structured constitutional and social framework.
Generational and locational privilege are appropriate and necessary targets of the meritocratic state. Its guns must be forever aimed at these, as they do not expire obligingly when fired upon but miraculously revive even after they have been hit. A meritocratic state must be constituted in such a way as to compensate for this and to resist such developments. Otherwise such meritocratic advances as are made will be eroded and possibly lost.
With a view to counteracting generational privilege, the meritocratic state abolishes hereditary offices of state, of course, dissociates itself from all hereditary titles and religious sects and provides an educational system designed to furnish all citizens with a level playing field, as it were. The playing fields of Eton, I am afraid, do not appear to fit into this scheme of things at all. They are not meant to do so. They are meant to provide privilege and advantage and, in particular, privileged rather than strictly merited access to your Oxbridge. And why not in a state the head of which acquires that position through hereditary privilege? There she sits, an hereditary symbol of the state over which she presides in place of an elected president, at the state opening of the English parliament, surrounded by members of an upper house the members of which are not democratically elected.
Dumbing down of state education does not fit into the meritocratic scheme of things either, of course. It undermines and renders malfunctional the mechanism for meritocratic advancement and privileges that part of the educational sector which is not subject to dumbing down, the private one, to which most citizens do not have access. In France, of course, the 'ecole libre', which is where a religion-based education may still be obtained, remains a fly in the ointment and may account to some extent for some products of the 'grandes ecoles' with whom you appear to have been less than impressed for one reason or another.
The ideal meritocratic state establishes common standards to which all conform in every part of the state. There is only one official language so that none may be disadvantaged by being educated non-standardly. State services of all kinds should be provided uniformly throughout the state. No zone should be treated differently so that no advantage or disadvantage should become associated with it. That hardly describes the UK state, which is distancing itself from this ideal on a daily basis and as we speak.
This brings me to the question of the integrity of the state, to which I have alluded earlier with reference to Scotland, with which I am familiar. The way in which the United Kingdom has developed and is continuing to develop, combined with the historically hierarchical nature of its interlinked societies, makes much of the meritocratic state impossible to establish within its boundaries. Enduring economic imbalance, which characterizes the relationship between the component territories of the UK, ensures that the residents of one part of the state are subject to disadvantage in one form or another by virtue of being residents of that territory. This disadvantage can only incompletely be removed by transfer of individuals out of the disadvantaged territory to one of the others. To originate in an economically disadvantaged zone, especially one which is culturally deviant in some ways and to some degree, is to fail to fit the mould. If one then adds a reluctance to give one's loyalty to the dominant territory in the realm, the possibilities of equality of opportunity in practice can be seen to fade before one's eyes. Mr Brown has made it, of course, but England hates him for it, and Scotland hates him for giving his loyalty so unconditionally to the dominant territory.
In the historically exceptionally grave economic circumstances which are embracing the United Kingdom at an apparently accelerating pace, the adherence and loyalty of the most deviant and most aspirationally egalitarian territory of the realm is at risk and for sound reasons. The failure to command the loyalty of Scotland, which you manifestly do not have, is hardly surprising. You take its wealth and squander it. You treat its people like inherently dependent second-class citizens of inferior culture. Essentially, the UK fails to provide the just and meritocratic state to which the subject people of that country aspire. At least that is an argument which can credibly be put forward and substantiated, or so I would maintain.
The risk of losing Scotland, which is real, may be expected to grow as the economic crisis grows, for the inequalities inherent in the UK will become more evident and more intolerable to the disadvantaged territories as economic damage is inflicted, particularly as they are going into this major recession represented by their own governments and in the case of Scotland, of course, by a government which is dedicated to achieving independence.
The risk of losing Scotland is a measure of the unmeritocratic and inequitable nature of the British state as it has been constituted. These characteristics of that state are difficult to defend. Therefore, their existence is denied by those who have a vested interest in denying them. Unfortunately, they cannot but exist, nevertheless, and the UK state cannot remove them by any means that would be acceptable to the subordinate territories. Therefore, the economic non-viability of your state, which the economic crisis will demonstrate to Scotland, combined with the related imperfections to which I have referred, will make its survival in its present form problematic, to say the least.
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Nick:
I have to agreed with your remarks; and, it has been a roller coaster for Gordon Brown in 2008....
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# 273 # 275 sicilian29
Thanks for the link, which makes interesting reading. However, to extrapolate from the data provided that current unemployment is really four times the official estimate beggars belief, even for someone as cynical about official statistics as myself.
Were that the case, relative poverty would be at such levels that one would see matching evidence from statistics on the black economy and at least expect crime to be on the increase, which it is not by any objective measure. If you believe that these statistics are also understated, we are in the world of mega-conspiracy.
Whilst I am confident that politicians are, for the most part, wholly self-interested, I do not believe that they have the competence or consistency to cover up a scam of this magnitude.
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Got as far as paragraph 2
Looked left at the photograph of a grinning baffon
Felt sick
And left
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This was said and written over a year ago. Illustrates what some backbenchers were thinking then and might well be thinking now regarding The Iraq pull out.
'Leading lights in the party said trying to capitalise on the 'Brown bounce' of his first few weeks in office could backfire on the Prime Minister, costing him key marginal seats.
In an autumn election, Labour could suffer from a low turnout due to bad weather, a backlash in Scotland and a lack of activists, they said.
Senior backbencher Andrew Dismore said: "The Tories are in a mess. But that doesn't mean [an early election] would be the best thing for the country or Labour. It makes more sense for Gordon to deliver on policy announcements.
'Our troops are likely to be in Iraq until next year. We need closure on that first."
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vor_tecks @ 318:
A little more on unemployment figures as they are a current concern:
Nearly ten million people in Britain are out of work - more than six times the official unemployment rate - it has been revealed.
The 'hidden army' of jobless accounts for a quarter of the working-age population.
Critics said the staggering numbers represented a 'huge pool of wasted talent' and fuelled concerns about the drain on the economy. They are now further rising as a result of the 'economic downturn'.
The real total is 9.6million, because a further 7.95million people in Britain are classed merely as 'economically inactive'.
They are not listed as unemployed but do not go to work because they are sick, looking after family or simply refuse to find a job.
While they are not claiming unemployment benefits, many rely on other handouts such as incapacity benefit.
The 'economically inactive' currently form something like 21.2 per cent of the working-age population Some 1.89million of the current total are students, 2.35million are carers for elderly relatives or stay-at home mothers, and 2.04million are on long-term sickness.
A further 198,000 are on temporary sickness leave, 619,000 have retired early (I am in fact one of these number having retired early early due to ill health) and 35,000 are classed as 'discouraged workers', meaning they are not interested in finding work.
Kieran O'Keeffe, policy adviser for the British Chambers of Commerce, described the increase as 'worrying'.
He added: "Whilst we accept that many people cannot work for valid reasons, such as those with caring responsibilities or in early retirement, there are many more that are claiming welfare in one form or another.
"These represent a "hidden unemployed", lost within the complexity of official statistics.
"This underlines the urgent need to find a long-term solution to welfare dependency, which, if left unchecked, will condemn a growing proportion of the working population to a cycle of low aspiration and worklessness."
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The Brown momentum exists because many other countries seem to be having problems too, so Brown does not get the blame. The question which the Tories cannot answer is Where were you when everything seemed to be going so well? I don't remember them getting the message through that it will all end in tears.
So the political crunch time will be when countries start emerging from recession will Britain be significantly behind the rest? And if there are signs of a recovery will people turn against the party which appears to be taking them out of it compared with a party which will have had no opportunity to show that it could have done or would have done any better?
Vince Cable has developed a reputation of having some of the answers. This does not help Dave's image one little bit.
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Please all sane minded people do not be fooled by Brown`s cultivated PR and self motivated delusion.He has been in a position of immense power for over ten years and in this time has watched the country deteriorate morally , socially and economically it is immensely sad.
He continues to take us down this path , history will be his final downfall.
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Is it a medical condition peculiar to MP's that they cannot answer questions.
What really disgusts is Gordon Brown's failure to condone the police entering parliament re the Damian Green affair.
Just shows how he values principles and values.
I have talked to lots of people about Brown and guess what nobody has a good word to say. Does anyone else out there get the same feedback?
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Brown call an election?
Gordon Brown couldn't call a taxi.
Only someone with such an inflated opinion of himself could be pleased that he's 'benefitting' from the dire straights into which he has plunged us.
He may think he has benfitted but wait until someone else calls that election.
The he can explain to us why he built a boom on credit and was surprised when the credit bubble popped.
Cut public spending and public sector pensions. Cut public sector waste. Cut public sector jobs.
Call an election.
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The latest YouGov poll indicates that the electorate are not as easily fooled as you are Nick.
Spain is at a halt today as it awaits the result of it's massive lottery draw (which is ironically called El Gordo) when someone will get very rich.
Our 'El Gordo' has ensured we all get poor. He's sold our gold, ruined private sector pensions, created 1.2 million useless public sector jobs, beggared our armed forces, buried small businesses in paperwork and 'family friendly' legislation, encouraged welfare dependence, politicised the police force (sorry, police service) and along with zillionaire Blair conducted a disastrous social engineering and top down meddling experiment that has left us with no national identity.
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Ha, our lottery would not be called El Gordo it would be called El Torro. Bull in a china shop.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
318#
I sincerely hope your assessment is correct that it is not possible to cover up a deception of this magnitude.
However.
Given the events of the last 12-18 months, I would venture that you may give its authenticity some serious consideration. The indicators that you quote should reflect what would be a parallel increase. Given though that there has been what would appear to be mis-reporting, or selective reporting of stats, because of the target driven ethos that is now prevailing, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that these things are indeed happening to us as a nation.
We're just not all being told the whole story.
Can you accept that this is indeed a distinct possibility? I can.
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"The PM's sounding more and more like a war time leader."
Dr Rowan Williams was suggesting a similar thing too...
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Nick,
Check out this summary of recent polls:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog
Please explain how the momentum is with Gordon Brown and who was seriously asking whether Labour should call an election now on the basis they were likely to win?
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When is the Great british press going to get the prime minister, war time or not, inot a debate about the great delusion that was the last eleven years?
This period of history will be written up as a disgraceful act of self delusion by newlabour.
The very ideas that we could all be wealthy; that we could all own our own homes; that the Chinese would go on forever supplying us with cheap goods; that banks would continue to lend forever at ever lower interest rates; that we could 'have it all'.
The government, Gordon Brown and the british public need to wake up and learn a sharp lesson that moneyu does not fall off trees; it has to be earned.
Where is all this money coming from that Gordon Brown in his wartime capacity is showering us with? Does nobody remeber that during the last real war.. WWII..when we sepnt what we didn't have to get us through the war; we ended up bankrupt and goingcap in hand to the USA?
This loan after WWII was only paid off after more than fifty years; terms were so onerpous (negotiated by another labour government) that we had to suspend interest payments during the (labour) IMF crisis of 1976.
Is this where British people really want to go? back to being horribly indebted becasue they can't face the harsh realities of living within their means?
It's certinly where Gordon Brown wants to go - he now seems to genuinely believe that he is aking a difference yet the horror of the UK banks is there for all to see; still not lending to each other and the wholesale credit markets firmly shut.
But so he goes on scanning the horizon for the next basket case to flood with cash - our cash - that will take generations to pay off.
This is the legacy Gordon Brown has written for himself and this country; the delusion that we could have it all; the delusion that government could make a difference; the delusion that we could spend what we didn't earn.
All one giant con trick.
Call an election now.
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Yes he is sounding like a war time leader...............HITLER
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Nick,
you are right to stick by Gordon. Many people do not seem to appreciate what a great gift God has given us with this man.
Every Country in the world would envy us.
With all the global problems he is taking care of (and solving) he even finds the time to look after small details like making a personal call to Sir Alex Ferguson to ask him to take charge of the Olimpic Football team.
Can you imagine this? His incompetent ministers couldn't even do that and the poor guy had to take care of that himself!
And he still has the strength to smile. Thank God for Gordon. It will not be long before he becomes as powerful as the Italian P.M.
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Dangerous analogy Nick ..
Churchill did not do too well in the election called after WWII - so when the worst of the financial problems are sorted then we might think it's time for a change?
Actually I'm glad that GB is having 'a good war' - perhaps that will sustain him when he is unceremonially booted out at the next election. This will be spite of his protestations that 'it wern't nuffink to do with him'
Or were you referring to Asquith who was replaced half way though WWI ?
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Now it's a "war time leader"? Whatever are Nick, Gordon Brown or whichever Labour drone writing this drivel, on?
Times must be bad if the brief's been given to the "I felt the hand of history on my shoulder" author/ess... How about "I felt the collective boot of the electorate in my..." next spring?
Perhaps JK Rowling's dabbling in speech writing instead of Harry Potter.
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"If this goes on, we political commentators may start to suggest that what a failing leader really needs to rescue them is a massive economic crisis."
Brilliant.
If this becomes a precedent it will only encourage politicians to wreck our economy every five years.
People get the politicians they deserve.
Nick, why don't you political commentators NOT suggest that failing leaders should wreck the economy in order to get re-elected?
Why don't you political commentators suggest that people want competent, prinicipled and accountable leadership regardless of which party colours they wear?
Why don't you political commentators suggest that if you have been in charge of the economy for the past eleven years and now the economy is broken you ought to publically accept responsibility rather than constantly try to shift the blame?
I don't care about Labour v Conservative v Lib Dem. I care that the British public accept such pathetic leadership from those we elect.
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Toenails,
Please name one wartime leader, who at the time of war, was photographed grinning like a Cheshire cat?
Could you imagine Brown leading us through the Second World War??? Especially if he was grinning because he was enjoying the war so much.
No - Gordon Brown - is instead the 'snake oil salesman' who is laughing because he is continuing to con people like you Robinson.
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We are now entering the period we should describe as hubristic delusion.
He created this situation and sincerely believes that he is the only person who can resolve the mess we're in.
If he had his way he would probably choose to suspend parliament and elections until the crisis has passed
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Tonenails,
The Labour spin doctors are desperately trying to align Brown to an impressive historical figure.
They've tried Churchill and Moses already.
Now through, Mandelson's mouth piece on earth, they are attempting a more generic 'war time leader' positioning.
Unfortunately there are no historic parallels with Gordon Brown.
If Shakespeare, Tolkein and the brothers Grimm pooled all their respective talents, even they could not conceive a villain character that matched this:
A one eyed, bogey eating leader, who following a vile plot overthrew the previous leader.
On seizing power the new leader was found to have no plans, other than to spend all his time covering up his past crimes, of taxing the poor and spending all the nations money on stupid vanity driven projects.
A manipulator of the media whom he used to repeat lies oppress the people and keep them in the dark concerning his past crimes.
Locking up opponents in jail, whilst grinning and telling everyone they couldn't do without him.
Laughing all the way to the grave gripped in the joy of holding the reigns of power, having destroyed the nations wealth and assets.
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"Huberistic Delusion" ? Surely not, this is the man who "Made Poverty History" was it not ?
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I see on the front page of a tabloid this morning that Brown has solved the unemployment problem.
He is going to create 100k jobs.
Can someone please inform him that that wont even cover the ones he lost last month let alone the whole problem.
I think we should start calling him "Daredevil" afterall he was the blind super hero
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Some have commented on Dr Rowan Williams's words. His was a scathing attack. One might wish for the church to be a-political and surely attacking a political party in this way contravenes this? But actually that's the whole point. Things have got so bad we should all put poliitics aside and work together to get out of this mess.
Labour's return to spin is the worst kind of politics. It shows a cynical disregard for the electorate and the needs of the country. Who would want to win at any cost? At a time when we need openness and honesty we have (knife) crime figures distorted and Ministers paying members of their family £40K to do 'research', to name but the latest offences to be highlighted.
So I applaud Dr Williams. Men of conscience such as these have a duty to speak out. It would be negligent not to. Indeed I urge Dr Williams to hold David Cameron accountable for his stance on social justice. As we face the perils of this recession, never has there been a greater need for social justice. And if social justice is new to the Conservatives then let's not deride them as novices. Let's encourage them, correct them as they learn. Better late than never I say.
I believe Labour has sold its idealogical principles for power, and I despise Gordon for his bluster, his obfuscation and his spin, so my obectivity is shot. However, his answer to Dr Williams actually impressed me. It was the first time I have seen him act with statesmanship. His answer was effectively to agree to disagree, but he upheld his attackers right to his views and paid respect to his position. If only he could show the same respect for the electorate and the opposition we might get somewhere.
For his incompetence and neglect I cannot forgive him. If he starts to treat everybody with the respect he showed Dr Williams then I believe there may yet be hope for him as a human being.
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Honestly! I'm bored with this trivia and nonsense about how Gordon Brown has the air of a great war-time leader about him. He is soooo far removed from the reality of the 'hard working British families' (such as mine) that he seems to constantly bang on about it's untrue.
More to the point, when there is so much expert opinion out there that says we are really in deep and smelly stuff, does our esteemed BBC Political Editor seem to believe the most important thing is to 'big up' the guy who has done more than anyone (including the americans) to land us right in it?
The Deputy Head of the BoE has said they didn't have a clue, IMF slates us for having excessive personal and Govt debt, the Govt get found out for trying to charge 27% interest on emergency loans to the poorest of the poor....etc etc. And now the Head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad 'UNRESERVEDLY apologises for his comments over the weekend, but Jacqui Smith's line on it is that he has withdrawn 'some' of his comments - er, no, he has 'unreservedly apologised' for all his remarks.
Still, it's more important to praise the great leader. Expect the next blog to be how GB has taken in a homeless person for Xmas lunch or how he has single-handedly saved Jaguar Landrover or how the increase in sales in the last weekend before Xmas is entirely due to the VAT decrease and not the 75%-Off sales that are going on anyway.
Are there any News organisation out there that actually report and comment on the facts rather than pander to the PR dept of political parties or big business interests??
Hate to say it, especially as a someone who is intensely proud to be English, but this country is going down the pan. Not so much going down, as diving down headlong encouraged by our political masters through their media mouthpiece.
I've had enough. Emigration is now seriously on the cards.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Would the BBC please stop building up this authoritarian Government, headed by a PM who has made catastrophic decsions whilst PM and Chancellor, into one of righteousness and focus; war time leader - this belittles the real war time leaders this country has had. Just report on how ineffective this Government has been, (not other countrys') in manageing the economy over the past decade and what the consequences of their actions are having and will have in the future.
War time leader - Uncle Joe Stalin perhaps.
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To be Fair I think Nick Robinson does a very good job balancing out his two responsibilities of being a Political Analyst and appearing on the Friday/Sunday night project with Justine Lee Collins.
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#3:
"Sounding like a war leader? Chamberlain or Churchill?"
Neither of those, but Stalin.
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Well said: middleenglandtim #344
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There is something not quite right when the rest of the country suffers and the man responsible thrives.
You can kid some of the people some of the time but you can't kid all of the people all of the time.
As time goes on I am sure we will see GB deflate back to where he was as more and more see through him.
Anyone who gloats over other peoples' misery deserves everything they get.
As the truth comes out he will be seen more and more as a the most incompetent chancellor and PM since James Callahan in the seventies.
And some of us still remember what a disaster he was.
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Hmmm. Wonder where all the NL bloggers have gone?
Alistair only paying them up to the 19th, back on the 5th January?
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Was Sergeant Bilko a war-time leader?
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316 frankly_francophone
Extremely well put.
I regret that many of your comments ring true. It seems extraordinary to me that, three hundred years after one nation was created from four countries, regional tensions still exist.
Given the position of Great Britain (the physical mass), it is almost inevitable that a lot of financial development would have occurred close to main-land Europe. Traditionally, the industrial power-houses were further north. I have no idea why there should be any residual antagonism between people who share a small island space.
I would agree that the system of political administration in France provides a better mix of "national" and "local" fund management and responsibility than our generally ramshackle approach.
I have a soft spot for a constitutional monarchy. At best, it delivers a non-political Head of State, able to stand above the daily grind of politics. And provides some link to the nation's historical past. At worst, I absolutely concede, it embeds privilege.
I'm rather more in favour of having a Head of State who stands above party politics.
The House of Lords is anachronistic. But, surprisingly, with the mixture of people from varied backgrounds and areas of competence, often debates legislation with more understanding than that shown in the fully elected chamber.
Frankly, I'd prefer the Lords to be a non-party organisation, dependent on individuals making personal choices when considering laws.
In my opinion, a lot of the "English resentment" has been brought to the surface because devolution was poorly thought through. We have some UK MPs who have no direct responsibilities to their electorates for decisions made in the Scottish Parliament, but who vote on issues affecting other areas of the nation. Sounds like a two-tier system to me!
By the way... I have a lot of respect for the products of the "grands ecoles". I rather wish we had something similar in the UK.
I worked with/for many who were extremely good. Also with some who were technically very competent (either from a technological, administrative or commercial viewpoint), but lacked the ability to deal with people.
(Please note: my estimate of people is not based on whether or not I got on well with them! I had a lot of respect in a working environment for people who I found personally distasteful!)
I did tend to find people who shared a common mind-set. The "right way to think". Which certainly allows them to move fairly effortlessly between corporations or arms of government. But I'm not sure it throws up the "out-of-the-box" thinking that occurs elsewhere.
My initial comments about meritocracy were based around the difficulty in choosing between which meritocrat should "get the nod", when many offer apparently similar attributes.
Still not sure.
Thanks, anyway. I'll re-read your posting.
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How about a quick poll ?
Has anyone actualy met anyone in the past (say) 6 months who has a good word to say about Brown?
I haven't. I meet quite a lot of people, and noone has had a good word to say about Brown.
I see the published polls, I see blog comments, I see articles etc... But face-to-face everyone hates brown.
I can only assume that all the 'pro' stuff is entirely insincere (blogs, articles, etc).
Every one hates brown - if there is a rollercoaster it is downhill all the way.
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292 Yellowbelly
If the report is true, I share your criticism and agree that there are many better ways of spending public money. However, I have learnt never to argue on the basis of press reports since Britain's biggest selling newspaper reported that Elvis was still alive and was living in a London bus - on the moon.
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Glad to see the BBC's transparent attempt to prop up a useless government by portraying Gordon Brown as a war time leader has backfired, as per usual.
What were you expecting? He's about as statesmanlike as Frank Spencer. If he really were a statesman he would have given us the referendum about the EU manifesto to which his party was pledged and then, if he'd won on the basis of a presentation of the case he would have gone to Lisbon and stood in line with all the other EU leaders.
His performance at Windsor with the Queen, Sarkozy and his wife said it all... getting lost in the castle presumably distracted by the realisation of how insignificant he is in the scheme of things.
he orders one of his advisors to get on the phone and save Woolworths.. one of the all time dirtiest, grubbiest, most useless of retailers; the one that singularly failed to notice a single consumer trend from its pick and mox counter. Our money is being wasted by advisers calling that piece of junk?
This is the reality of Brown's leadership; he wastes vast quantities of time and cash chasing lost causes. Any private sector managmenet would be fired on the spot for this legacy of time wasting and budgetary incontinence...but you ask us to think of him as a war time leader.
Get real BBC.
Call an election.
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I think that Nick is doing a satire of the Korean / Chinese official government communications with subjects :
Start every article with 'our great and noble leader has decided to waste his time communicating with you unwashed unworthies'.
Then repeat the one-sided party line, interrupting only to rubbish any criticism of the party line.
Nick, of course, also has his eye on the fate of Andrew Gilligan - who exposed the government spin machine's role in the death of the scientist and paid for his journalistic integrity with his job.
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Crash Gordon is at the root of our woes. If it hadn't been for his constant "No more boom and bust!" mantra, the country wouldn't have been lulled into thinking that we could go on spending on the never-never. His government was also conned into this belief. How Crash has actually benefitted from this recession is totally beyond me. As it has been noted elsewhere, these nudges and winks that stemmed from the goverment do shape the country and people will wake up and realise that, actually, Crash is to blame after all.
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fairlyopenmind
"out-of-the-box" does that mean that we the public are "out-of-the-box" and have no choices and out beloved leader continues to grin?
This state is becoming more socialism/facist nation by the week
The benefits of developing diverse leaders
We are committed to looking for leaders in unexpected places - and then exposing them to the information and the perspectives they need to be more effective. In the process, they meet new people, make new connections and find new ways of working with people who may not view the world in the same way.
source : common purpose?
Isnt this charatable institution & a new labour backed charity?
The lie continues to unfold, and the BBC have their own guilt in this change of society.
Happy new year!
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315 kingsrgs
With every contribution, you demonstrate your lack of understanding of fundamental political and economic issues. Nothing wrong with that, many of us were students at one time. It may, or may not be of interest to you but I am not a Labour supporter. To make an assumption about an individuals voting behaviour on the basis of one or two contributions to a web site shows an alarming lack of political nous. Good luck with your studies.
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Nick,
I have always been an avid reader of your blog, but recently it seems you have ignored some highly important and sensitive topics in favour of praising Gordon Brown and telling us that if he calls an election he just might win it.
Why you did not write an entry about the Social Fund document - you know, where they commissioned a piece of work, signed off on the recommendations, published it, watched the news break, waited for the public reaction, saw it was bad, retracted everything....AGAIN.... - is beyond me. This is a government who now rather than asking us, the public they WORK FOR, what we would like to see in terms of policy, publish or LEAK these reports to guage support.
It wouldn't suprise me if there were many many more of these reports and recommendations that we just don't know about, but that are informing these MPs in decisions they make - decisions that affect us....you know, the people they work for (supposedly).
Why would a political commentator, as you claim to be, feels that "Gordon Brown is happy and saving the world" is a better, or more newsworthy story??
Why do you think you average 300+ comments every time you write about our PM, very few of which agree with your sentiments, and many more of which actually put forth more sensible, more educated and more interesting opinions than your own?
So, thanks for making it an easy decision for me to just stop reading.
A disgruntled citizen of the Formerly Great Britain.
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#354 the-real-truth
I think you're probably right. Everyone does appear to hate Brown.
The worst thing is that he is still faring well on "official" polls. I am starting to think that a lot of people must lie deliberately on these polls in order to encourage Brown to call an election. ;-)
It might explain a few things about Nick too...
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I must apologise to all for being a thicko.
I've just realised that the reason NR hasn't posted anything since the 19th - it's the weekend stupid! Of course the world, economy and politics all have the customary two days off . Absolutely nothing to do with there being a plethora of bad news indicators out there that are best left uncommented upon in case it takes the shine off GB's halo.
I'm expecting Nick's next blog to announce that Gordon has decided to make it snow on Thursday because, as we all know, he listens to people and that is what the British people want.....apart from him to resign of course.
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#354 AND #362
I agree, nobody I know even Labour voters want Brown back in again. Oh sorry I forgot he never won last time did he so it cannot be again. But just to see a poll on here add who you would vote for at the end of each Blog.
Tory
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I suspect that many ordinary folk think that they would like to 'do without' ... the Government.
'I'm from the Government and am here to help' - always guaranteed to generate the hollowest laugh of all.
It is all very trying.
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#363
you can also assume that balhamu, jimbrandt, CEH, derkbarber, are all government advisors too as not a single one of them has managed a post in defence of the Dear Leader today.
How this corrupt and inept government is so easily rumbled.
Next thing is as posted by Charlesdigby... to start saying we would all vote for Gordon Brown if an election is called so he can be told what we really think when we get to the polls.
Now come on Crash.. get on and call an election and defend your pitiful record of financial and managerial imcompetence.
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356 RobinJD.
I note that you end your contributions with the words 'call an election'.
Are you aware of the constitutional position relating to the issue?
If you are then you are wasting your time.
The Prime Minister is clearly ignoring your stupid demand, and he is wise to do so.
Mr Brown will decide when the next election will take place.
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Well, I have had my comnment removed - before it even got posted - but all I said is what other people are starting to say - where is the rest of the news?
I expect there to be no more blog entries here until Mandelson can give one.
Let's face it there is only the:
Quick retraction...
Climbdown of the loan scheme...
Ed Balls issuing what appears to be common sense as we are all to thick to now what is safe...
A report in the Times on Sunday that the Govt are going increase the laws available to Debt Collectors to use physical force...
But no - let us continue to praise the Lord our Master Crash Gordon...
Sorry, this has run it's course...
Really, this is getting utterly nonsensical...
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Although I am not usually a Labour voter, unlike the majority of contributors to this blog I was relieved when Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair. I never saw the necessity for an election and I was also relieved when he decided not to call one. I thought it was maybe only my generation which was, on the whole, supportive of our present PM and have definitely felt in a minority when contributing to this blog. Always keen to canvass the opinions of the younger generation, I am happy to report the teen and 20 somethings I have asked are also, on the whole, supportive of our present PM... reservations tend to be on environmental concerns such as airport expansion, where the Conservatives are definitely gaining support for their proposed railway expansion policies.
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Meanwhile, in the real United Kingdom (that small piece of ground outside the Westminster bubble), the Government appears to be granting powers to private bailiffs to use "reasonable force" in pursuit of debt recovery (according to a report in the Times, see below).
By merging Inland Revenue and HM Customs, there has already been an extension of the powers of entry and search without a warrant.
I thought the aim of good Government was to ensure the right of its people to live in peace and security.
Why worry about terrorism when you may find "reasonable force" used against you legimately in your own home?
(Before anyone objects that they'll never wind up in debt, don't get me started about fraud, mistaken identity and other errors).
The news come at a time when the Government leads the way in debt and borrowing. Will they afford the Chinese the same rights when they come knocking for repayment?
Or will our softly-spoken "war-time leader" carry a big stick on our behalf?
(Ok it was the "other" Roosevelt, but he could also be seen as a "war time leader" in the Spanish American war).
[url]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5375668.ece[/url]
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Haven't heard from you today Nick , could it be you are doing some investigative Journalism to establish just what Mandy was doing on that yacht ?
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Once again I check your blog and get a fit of the giggles. What did you get Brown for Christmas Nick? After shave, nice fluffy jumper? His and His overcoats?
What price an unbiased Chief Political Editor at the BBC? It's actually getting so obviously slanted here it's a bit ridiculous.
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#359 Brownhas2eyes wrote:
fairlyopenmind
"out-of-the-box" does that mean that we the public are "out-of-the-box" and have no choices and out beloved leader continues to grin?"
I don't think Brown ever had an "outside-the-box" moment. (Sorry that typing speed didn't keep up with thought process...)
To quote from Wiki... "In 1994, in a speech written for Gordon Brown to give to an economics conference, he used the phrase "post neoclassical endogenous growth theory", which was picked up on and gleefully recounted later by Michael Heseltine, who coined the humorous quip: "There you have it! The final proof. Labour's brand new, shining, modernists' economic dream. But it's not Brown's - it's Balls"..."
Any serious politician would have red-lined (taken out) that comment. It may mean something, but just isn't the sort of garbage that even a bunch of economists believe would grace a public speech.
I regret that Brown chopped up a working set of financial regulations, in order to prove some radical thinking. Leaving the Treasury, BoE and FSA sharing control over a critical bit of any nation's activity.
Thatcher allowed the "Big Bang". That was about re-structuring and permitting companies to do things they hadn't done previously. And introduced electronic trading.
The break-down of regulation didn't happen until Brown had his hands on the controls at the Treasury.
It's awful to hear that the BoE didn't really recognise the degree of threat / exposure created by a credit-driven boom.
It seemed so darned obvious years ago that you can't build a nation on a bubble. Sad thing is that, when it went "POP", the architect remains in place.
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This really is becoming embarrasing now...is the BBC and Nick waiting for Monday to end so that there may be good news on Tuesday so that can be blogged about?
If I wanted to make a donation to a political party I would - and I would make it clear that I was doing so.
I did not realise by paying my licence fee that I was in fact making a donation to the Labour Spin Machine - that is what it appears to be.
I am just off to cancel my direct debit...
This is becoming utterly ridiculous now...
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#367 braveSouter
I am perfectly within my rights to call for an election regardless of what you or any other newlabour apologist thinks.
As for Gordon Brown calling one when he is ready; after the dithering of last autumn he will never be ready unitl the last possible moment, until the last bribe has been offered to his constituents - the workshy.
Kindly desist from your newlabour bullying tactics; they stopped working years ago. No amount of attemots to detain suspects for 42 days without charge or any other blatant efforts to terrorise ordinary subjects into submission will work. We have quite simply had enough of you and you know it.
Call an election.
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BBC and Nick we do not pay or BBC license for this tripe. The British Public are not stupid, are you after a knighthood from Brown
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#373
Well said fairlyopen. Brown destroyed the protection that was in place during the time of the Thatcher years. The bank of England had on important and now blindingly obvious role in protecting the economy and the banking system; removed by Gordon Brown.
he is the architect of this mess; he should resign on principle - but then again, he has none.
Call an election
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#370 fairlopian_tubester
"By merging Inland Revenue and HM Customs, there has already been an extension of the powers of entry and search without a warrant."
No there hasn't.
What you are referring to was the old Customs' power exercised by use of the Writ Of Assistance. This was only usable for Customs Offences. It was not usable for VAT offences although VAT was collected by the same Department - this required and still does use of a specific search warrant. The power of the Writ Of Assistance has certainly not been extended to direct tax enforcement.
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No375 Robin
I never questioned your right to call for an election.
Only a lunatic would call me a Labour supporter.
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#369 newtactic
"I am happy to report the teen and 20 somethings I have asked are also, on the whole, supportive of our present PM"
Why are you happy to report this?
I'm trying to avoid this being a cheap dig, honestly. As you are not usually a Labour supporter it surprises me that you would be happy that their opinion would be expressed either way.
I agree with you about Brown not being obliged to call an election, by the way. But I do think he ought to call one now.
This economic storm may have given Labour direction, but outside of this they have lost themselves completely.
Neither the Tories nor Lib Dems may be ready for government, but Labour are certainly ready for Opposition.
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The plan to introduce a commercial partner is a step in the right direction, but the real issue here is the Government?s plan to raid the pension fund of Royal Mail in order to plug the black hole in public finances. The Government is trying to look like the saviour of Royal Mail while at the same time being in flagrant breach of their election manifesto commitment.
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#369 newtactic
I do find it odd that posters seem irritated by the fact that Blair stepped down and Brown took over without a general election being called.
It's happened a few times in the past. Sometimes because ill-health suggested that a PM retire from public life, sometimes for other reasons.
We don't elect a PM. We (or at least those who bother to turn up...) vote for individual candidates to be returned to represent a specific constituency. That could mean that, at some point in the future, a party could be elected to "power" (a majority of seats in the House), while the Leader of that Party failed to win his local seat.
It would be rather odd to call an immediate election just because someone else from the majority had to be called upon to serve as PM...
I was more impressed by an apparently fluid understanding of policy areas by Blair than his ability to play "keepy-uppy" with Kevin Keegan. Likewise, the apparent intellect of Clinton was of more interest than his ability to bed (or maybe not even bother with that...) lots of ladies - or his performance on a saxophone.
Funny, really. It seems that I prefer politicians AND bankers who may have a sense of humour, enough life in them to engage with families and others, but take a rather small c conservative approach to life.
Can't help thinking that we'd be in a better place if that had been the case!
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Nice to know that the Spanish have rumbled Brown....
"Up to 1,950 people have won a share in the world's richest lottery - Spain's El Gordo, or "Fat One". "
No doubt Brown will seize on this as another example of his 'Saving the World'
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The Bank of England now admit they underestimated the severity of the problems of dangerous lending and unsustainable house values in our economy. An honest admission.
But where was Gordon during this time?
In sole charge of the nation's finances and boasting on every public appearance how prudence was the order of the day.
Now he parades in front of us as the worlds saviour with very little examination of the facts by the BBC and others.
When the day of reckoning arrives how will the BBC cover the story? Any reporting will no doubt include the words "global and unprecedented" several times. Gordon will do his disappearing act whilst Darling will make soothing statements
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'Although I am not usually a Labour voter, unlike the majority of contributors to this blog. '
Have I missed something?
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Gordon Brown will never admit he has got it wrong. It takes a big man to admit such a thing and Brown will never do that. He would rather carry on.
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#366 robinjd
As I've said before (and you cried to the moderators about to get it removed because it was an "offensive" post), the fact you seem to be here all day would suggest there's another poster who is more likely to be in the pay of a political party to be here.
Some people actually have to work.
Let's see if this stays up or *someone* complains about this.
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385 sicilian29... yes what you missed was the bit about "unlike most contributors to this blog I was relieved when Gordon Brown took over from Tonly Blair" Most contributors to this blog seem be sounding off their dislike of the PM. I realise when I edited my comment it read a bit like most contributors to the blog were labour supporters. Definitely not! In my opinion most entries are negatively critical of New Labour. I just wanted to make the point that I was surprised to find so many young people keen on the current PM and his Government. The other point I wanted to make was that the Conservatives have probably got quite a long way to go to capture the young vote.
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Not sure where you go, Nick.
I have never contributed to any party and have no desire to do so.
I truly hope that we have a non-politicised police force.
It worried me when Sir Ian Blair allowed Tony Blair to be driven around in MET police cars adorned with "Vote Labour" stickers.
And spoke publicly in favour of proposed legislation.
The police have a serious job to do.
I have no idea about the facts, but it seems odd that a senior policeman would state publicly that he believed a political party was "out to get him", because his wife ran a car hire business from their home.
He sounds like a serious guy, doing a serious job. So I assume that his wife's business is VAT registered - or at least reporting income in a suitable way.
By the way, I have no idea why it is that he should need to move house for a while. Presumably enough people knew of the existence of the car-hire firm to keep his wife in business.
I'd have thought that, as a very senior policeman, he'd have made sure any private business was conducted away from the family home.
Also, that it is impossible to prevent people from finding out where you live.
If there is a genuine threat to anyone in public office, based on the notion that people "know where you are", you'd have thought that our PM would have moved out of No. 10 long, long ago...
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So, this is it, this is all we can expect is it?
Headline news ALL day on both the front page and the politics page on bbc.co.uk, PM on R4, headline news on Radio and Headline news on six o'clock news...and other channels - and in the other papers has been the Quick retraction and apology - then we have Waqui Jaqui saying he retracted 'some' of his wild moment (unfounded) accusation....
this has been all day long - ALL DAY
So what of the political analysis....nothing! Diddly squat!
Then we have the the Social Fund loan shark in the papers and in the news since yesterday....
So what of the political analysis....nothing! Diddly squat!
Then we have ministers pressed on empty homes, the banks not understanding what on earth has been going on in their own field of expertise, Ed Baubles issuing his christmas speech in leaflets, debt collectors being allowed more powers to use force - etc etc...
So what of the political analysis....nothing! Diddly squat!
Nick, please, just hang up your keyboard, do us a favour and let Gary Donahue or someone unbiased have a turn. We are sick and tired of this Labour Spin Propoganda...
I (we) await with baited breath what your analysis is going to be next...one can only assume you are really digging hard to find out what mandy was doing on that yacht...
Oh look, there's a pig just flown past my window...
Off now to hit that cancel button on my Brown Broadcasting Corporation Donation - sorry, my licence fee!!!
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382#
Laughable it might be. Ignorant, even.
I know what Gordon did in order to secure the keys to No10 is not illegal.
But it is phenomenally egotistical, bordering on megalomania; he is not cut out for the job. Never has been.
The worldwide financial crisis is not exclusively his fault. But his policies, their half-assed implementation, their lack of diligence, their lack of oversight and enforcement HAS had a direct and measurable impact. And meanwhile, he is being compared to Moses, Heathcliffe and heaven knows who else.
He is the single most unprincipled, avaricious, undeserving, ego-burnishing individual who I have ever encountered.
The fact that a serving PM can stand down and be replaced by someone who stands completely unopposed is not illegal. I know that.
But it is wrong. It should not be allowed.
Had Brown, as leader of the Parliamentary Labour party, run in the 2005 election against Michael Howard, he would have lost.
That is why Blair didnt hand over.
And I defy any one of todays absent ZaNuLieboor trolls to prove otherwise.
THATS why so many of us are demanding an election. I for one, do not want this buffoon grinning his ass off, whilst our futures are going down the gurgler and he, one of the principle architects, is getting away with it.
If Mandelson wants to compare Gordon to a wartime leader, maybe he should ponder on what happened to Il Duce. And be thankful that the British public are too dumb, too apathetic, too bought off on benefits to do anything similar to him.
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Nick
What was Mandleson doing on Deripaska's yacht, please?
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389 fairlyopenminded
AC Quick
Quick to shoot from the lip. Quick to move. Quick to retract. Just the man for the job. Now what was that about decisions being taken too, er quickly, no sorry, in haste, by another copper. Less haste more speed.
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Fubar_Saunders.@391
"..And be thankful that the British public are too dumb, too apathetic, too bought off on benefits to do anything similar to him."
If only "the general public" were as clever as the Scrooges that congregate here? The country would be a more intolerant and miserable place.
"..And I defy any one of todays absent ZaNuLieboor trolls to prove otherwise."
Those who you allege are trolls are absent therefore cannot answer. They have better things to do than argue with the Dickensian opinions on this board. In the words of the great 20th century philosopher Noddy Holder "IIIts Chriiistmaaas!". Shame there are not enough Christmas ghosts out there to sort you all out.
The BBC is great keep up the unbiased work. Sky News is gaudy populist rubbish.
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Quite, Wilko, some of us are still working.
Dunno where you got the "scrooges" bit from, but never mind. I'm not going to split hairs over that.
Indeed, if only the public were that clever. But that wouldnt do, would it. Far better to keep them in a continual state of fear of impending poverty, terrorism, financial meltdown... that way, they're not likely to do anything to upset the political applecart, are they? When a population is kept in fear, it can be kept compliant.
The world is already intolerant and miserable I'm afraid Wilko.
Might not be inside Gordon and Nick's Westminster bubble, but it is outside, in the real world.
Thanks for your last line though, you cheered me up. Have a good Christmas Wilko :-)
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Just out of interest DHW, I notice you didnt address any of the other points.
Only pointed out what life would possibly be like if there were people like me in charge.
Funny that, I'm sure I've seen that M.O somewhere before....... lol
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lol
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Gordon would be well advised to cut and run. Things are only going to get worse in the next year ... he will oversee the highest unemployment in decades. This will hit his ratings almost as hard as the rest of the country - and his 'reputation' (God knows how he still has one!) willl be utterly destroyed. His work undermining the economy over the past decade, and then making things worse with his ill-judged response will be fully exposed.
Eden, Chamberlain, London-Labour-Broon.
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It is clear why the BBC initially wanted nothing to do with the internet, but now want to control it.
It is fantastic that so many people can come toghether and condemn an organisation on its own turf.
Nick - if you can't tell us about Mandleson and Oleg, then you are as unfit for your purpose at the BBC as Quick is for his purpose in the police force.
And while on or two contributers say they know people who speak in support brown -- I don't beleive them.
I have not heard a single word from anyone (in person) in support of brown/labour. I meet a fair few people (and not just the same people in the same bubble - but random and diverse groups of people) everyone I have heard from (in person) hates brown.
Only on some blogs and in some main-stream-media do I see anything in support of brown - nothing that can be genuinely be assumed to be 'genuine' or 'heart-felt'.
Brown is toast.
His 'generals' in the police force are starting to crumble - his personal bunker is not far away.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#400
I wouldn't deny that this comment holds a lot of truth:
The Tories only know how to create anger and hate.
However. Who is creating the most anger and hate, countrywide right here, right now?
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This is strange...or normal...whichever way you want to look at it. Nick has gone AWOL again.
Could it be that there is nothing positive to spin about the Beloved Leader? Was it the BBC Political Unit Xmas party over the weekend and he is still under the duvet? Any other suggestions to his whereabouts welcome.
Personally I reckon there is something massive brewing that has meant Nick has had to do some work and will break the exclusive on Weds :-
"Gordon Brown, our great and noble leader, has decided to give all hard working British families, whether they work or not, are members of a family or not, and whether they are British or not, two days holiday on Thursday and Friday of this week.
This in stark contrast to the 'do nothing Tory party' who would simply sit back and let the hard working British people suffer with just the traditional two day bank holiday on Thursday and Friday."
There really must be another Political rep at the BBC who could do a blog focussed on the issues of the day rather than play the role of Brown's poodle.
I'm told Canada is quite a nice place to live.
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Charles_E_Hardwidge
Ref your post at 400.
According to your own strict rules for the rest of us, you should refer that post to the moderators.
Not a single word on topic.
Not even a paragraph slavishly praising Gordon Brown's personality and telling us how he would be the ultimate war time leader.
P.S. Maybe Gordon Brown is trying to provoke Iceland into war. That would match his personality type. Pick on someone smaller. Use some inappropriate 'terror laws' on them. Use the resulting crisis (or preferably war) to big up his own popularity.
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'The Tories only know how to create anger and hate. This is why focusing on building a better alternative and ignoring their attempts to create squabbles is useful.'
This kind of blanket statement is just hogwash and not at all helpful in the context of reasoned discussion. I haven't got the energy to go to any length to expose the stupidity of it because I'm struggling with this heavy cold and terrible chesty cough that's going round and I'm now off to my sisters for Christmas feeling rather ropy and sorry for myself. l leave it to others to respond in a reasoned manner.
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Comment 392
Mandy was networking and widening the circle of his friends.
Wonder how much Russian money will be coming in to the UK soon - obviously for partnerships.
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The only "momentum" with Brown would seem to be that leading him towards a breakdown. Nobody who displays that kind of manic grin when the country he is supposed to be leading is in the state it is can be psychologically healthy.
And since CEH keeps telling us that Brown is an INTJ in terms of Myers Briggs psychometrics he should know that among the problems such "types" are deemed to have is making errors of fact. They then absorb those errors into their own interpretation of the world and make decisions based on what is in their heads never mind if it is totally divorced from actuality. Also, under stress, they criticise others and then make even more errors of fact, pursuing ideas that are totally unrealistic.
However, they can also act implusively so perhaps we shouldn't rule out an early election.
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This is boring!
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#400 Charles_E-Hardwidge
.....The Tories have denied it but I've seen comment from people who think there's some truth in Met Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick's claims.
Quick became "fair game" when he took on the Tory mob. Cameron may not have given a direct order but he knows how this sort of thing works. He's complicit......
AC Quick was indeed, quick, to withdraw his allegations. It seemed at the time to be the reaction of a somewhat furious man, who, having had time to reflect probably realised the stupidity of his statement. Whether Cameron, probably not personally, or his stooges behind the scenes are complicit, is a moot point, I honestly doubt it. In years gone by Campbell and latterly Lord Mandelson are masters of this strategy.
---
Best of luck with the photography, if you play golf you might find them similar. You can be out all afternoon and one or two decent shots make the entire endeavour worthwhile. The best thing is, unlike here, nobody has to suffer your output.
Happy Christmas and a healthy 2009 to all. Likeminded people and adversaries, you have all informed, infuriated or amused me, long may that continue.
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How come no mention here of the motor rental business run from Quick's domestic premises?
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When I was working in HR the Myers Briggs tests consistently came out completely wrong - we tested them on ourselves for a giggle and it really was a giggle.
For instance, the HR Manager came out as being bold, aggressive, a leader. gregarious etc. when in fact she was a self effacing little mouse who had all the Institute of Personnel Director qualification s etc., all on paper, but had to ask others to make the important decisions. She squirreled herself away in her office morn till night and was a reclusive character.
In the end she was "eased" out, constructively dismissed!
Not to be taken literally for one minute those Myers-Briggs. Most of us can judge character when we see it, hear it or READ it..
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# 406:
I believe the words you are searching for to describe all of this is 'self deluded'. Sums it up so perfectly don't you think!
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I have just posted on the CBS site,the German television site, the French press site,the Irish press site, the Spanish TV site,who are all wrong blaming thier governments, the credit crunch, bad loans in the US or George Bush for falling into a recession.
I have linked all thier messageboards up to here and explained that I have read the comments on here and they are all wrong and the Brits are right - all the world ills are Gordon Browns fault.
I have also asked them to do an Ashcroft and as they do not live in this country they can still vote Conservative in the next election.
Just read that Cameron will not be stopping his shadow cabinet from having second, third and fouth jobs as well as earing £60k plus expenses for being an MP.
Do you all realise as well as his MP's pay Hague gets over an extra £230k for doing four more jobs.At least this recession wont efect you if you work for the Shadow Cabinet.
So while we are all scraping and surviving for the Shadow Cabinet the money still rolls in and Cameron wont do a thing about it. How are they supposed to do the jobs he has asked them to do when they have 2,3 or 4 other jobs?
Thanks Dave, you have helped me make my mind up. This voter is now not a floater.
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How pathetic the dumb it down bbc are. Robert Peston inflates himself as he reports what the market did today having failed to foresee the fallout from the greatest credit bubble in history.
Nick Robinson passively reports what the prime minister says. How ironic that it has taken the germans, the church and opec recently to throw some cold water of reality on unchallenged bombastic gordon the arrogant .
Also interesting that the bbc didnt print the accusation made by police office Quick of "corrupt" tories. That surely is as serious an accusation as can be made? - oh maybe not the bbc evidently didnt think it needed to be reported - contextualisation no doubt.
Also Nick, how about asking mr Mandelson what exactly he knows about industry to qualify him to "rescue" large parts of it.
How perfect, someone with a major in media studies to the rescue of the rump british manufacturing industry
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Noticed on the Panorama prog. on Robert Peston last night that he is left handed.
Here is a list of notable left handed people, politicians, interesting to see how many of the US Presidents were including Reagan, Bush Senior, Jefferson ....
http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/fam_history.html#politicsuk
Presume Brown is not but he keeps proferring his left hand on the lectern at Press conferences. Something Freudian there...
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