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getridofgordonnow

Listed below are comments made by getridofgordonnow between Friday, 13th November 2009 and Tuesday, 24th November 2009.

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Introducing green cuts 1:30pm on 24 Nov 2009 "Labour points out that in the past 10 years, they have struggled to cut carbon emissions by 10% in central government - so promising to cut it by 10% in one year with no specific plan about how to do it looks pretty implausible."

So, just because labour aren't capable of cutting costs or emissions, that means that nobody can? With a trillion quid of public debt, methinks your logic is somewhat flawed there Nick.

How have businesses cut costs/emissions? They didn't have a choice, so they did it; they worked out how, and then achieved it. Government needs the same ultimatums otherwise the cuts simply don't happen.

That's what's gone so horribly wrong with public debt; there's been a labour policy of "just throw more money at it" since 1997, they couldn't care less about costs, so costs (and emissions) just spiral out of control.

You need to have discipline; labour don't have it. That's why they haven't achieved cuts or even basic sustainability; it's not because they can't, it's because they won't; their ideology stops them from achieving the very things that they're supposed to achieve.
Reasons to be careful 1:01pm on 23 Nov 2009 I suspect the pollsters will be just as surpised in 2010 as they were in 1997, because my guess is that the actual labour vote will evaporate, and that only union members and the unemployed will vote labour.

At least that's how I see it; everyone I know who's unemployed or a union member are voting labour, everyone else I know would rather have skewers inserted into their eyes than stay in the country if labour got in again.

You have to remember, Nick, that labour essentially bribe their "core vote" (union members and unemployed) by promising them more money and taking money away from everyone who's productive. So labour have a guaranteed "core" base vote of around 25%.

Mind you, labour are probably increasing their "core vote", simply by the fact that they're actually creating more unemployed by wrecking the economy, and employing ever more public sector workers that they don't need.
Britain lands key EU foreign policy post 1:50pm on 20 Nov 2009 re: 117 willjohnboy

"The "unelected PM" Urban Myth
In the UK we do not elect prime ministers. We elect parliaments and the prime minister is whoever commands a majority in the House of Commons."

As far as I know, the PMs that you mentioned were involved in some kind of contest to get the job as leader?

The "I was elected unopposed" argument doesn't hold water in my view, it's an oxymoron; if you were "unopposed" then you weren't elected.

Labour supporters might try and spin that Brown was "elected", and technically they're correct, but in practical/moral terms there clearly was no election/mandate.

Brown ousted (via a very nasty coup) a PM who was democratically elected, and didn't even have the courage to undergo a proper leadership election to get the job.

Yes, you're right that we don't elect Prime Ministers directly, but we do expect Prime Ministers to be elected via our elected representitives in a reasonable leadship election.

"Jedward" would have a larger democratic mandate to govern us than Gordon Brown.
Britain lands key EU foreign policy post 11:59am on 20 Nov 2009 No relevant experience, knowledge, or skills, and never elected.

Sounds a bit like our PM.

Guess it's a labour party thing.

She was accepted by the other countries simply because she's so completely lacking in experience/skills/knowledge/gravitas that none of the country leaders will be threatened by her, as they know that nobody's going to bother talking to her about anything important. But, that begs the obvious question "if the person filling the role isn't going to be treated seriously by anyone, then what's the point of having the role in the first place?"
If you thought it was all over... 1:45pm on 19 Nov 2009 "Gordon Brown's energies are now, some claim, focused on securing an important economic portfolio in the commission for a Brit instead."

How lucky for us that Brown isn't able to put himself forward while also being the leader of our government.

If the appointments were being made on/after July then it'd be a whole different story, as an ousted/de-elected Brown would undoubtedly bully his way into an "economic eu portfolio position", luckily for us by that time it'll be too late and the eu positions will already be taken.

I think that's probably one of the luckiest quirks of timing that we've had for a long time; it's probably saved the entire eu from total economic bankruptcy.

Very close shave that one.
Not the Queen's Speech 11:44am on 18 Nov 2009 Given that no parliament can legally tie the hands of a subsequent parliament (as the subsequent parliament can simply repeal the laws they don't like), this year's Queen's speech is completely pointless.

Firstly they won't have the time to put any of the laws through the commons/lords/process in time before the election.

Secondly most of the laws they do pass would simply get revoked/repealed if the tories get in.

It reminds me of the ID card shambles. Labour are still spending oodles of money on it and trying to convince people to buy an ID card, despite the fact that both the tories and the libdems say to the public "I wouldn't bother spending your money if I were you, because we're going to bin the entire database/system if we get in".

The governing party should take note of the timescales and potential repeals and admit defeat and call an election in a situation like this.

Parliament is, until after the next election, going to be totally useless, just sitting there to banter to try and score election points.

At a time when the economy is in crisis, and when the government says they want to reduce the deficit yet just seem to want to spend ever more money (if we don't have it, let's just print more, being their attitude), we can't really afford another 6 or 7 months of a Parliament which doesn't have the ability to actually do anything.

"promising to halve the deficit, to halve child poverty and to give every child a legal right to good schooling - are worth little more than the paper they're written on."

true; I could promise to do my best to win the lottery, but I probably won't win it.
Afghanistan ifs and maybes 4:18pm on 17 Nov 2009 re 72 dhwilkinson wrote:

"Training an Afghan. then allowing them to take over 1 sector at a time seems like a good idea to me."

It also seems like a good idea to me. In fact it's the obvious solution/strategy which should have been applied all along.

The question that you, me, and the BBC should be asking Brown is why it's taken 8 years to even consider having a strategy in the first place? This should have been the strategy from day 1.

Even now he's not adopting it as a strategy, he's just going to talk to other people in a couple of months about perhaps adopting it, and then perhaps start the process of actually starting to do it about 6 months after that.

Nick; please can you ask Brown why he's been funding a war for 8 years and only now has decided that having a strategy would be a good idea?

He doesn't need to talk about it, he just needs to do it, and he can start doing it now.

Here's a cleaned-up version of what I posted on guido's blog:

The solution is simple, and can be done without talking to nato or the un, we can do this off our own backs:

1) In the regions that the UK is currently responsible for in Afghanistan, you train a handful of Afghanistanis to the level that those people can then train more Afghanistanis.

2) You get out of their country and leave them to it.
Afghanistan ifs and maybes 12:53pm on 17 Nov 2009 What Brown said is pretty scary; he said that he has plans to talk about a strategy sometime next year.

Now, if we've already been at war for something like 8 years, but our government's never even bothered to talk about an overall strategy then I find that fairly terrifying.

It's the same non-action/negligence that labour use across the board; setup endless committees, get someone else to formulate some kind of plan, then debate it endlessly but never actually do anything.

How come we've been at war for many years and yet our government hasn't even bothered to even think about an overall strategy? That kind of negligence is absolutely mind-blowing.

You need to try and equate this kind of negligence with something like a private sector company to get a grip on how negligent it really is, ie you need to use an analogy to illustrate the negligence.

Say a private sector company is losing too much money because their bank fees are too expensive. What would they do? Would they setup endless committees to come up with a selection of potential plans, then spend years debating those plans, and then put it to a shareholder vote? No; if they had that kind of approach then the company would go bust.

Instead, the directors would talk to their own bank and some other banks and try and strike the best deal they could, then they'd move to the best bank, and they'd do that within a couple of weeks before their company lost any more money. The directors would do that because it is their job to do that. That's what they're employed to do; formulate and implement strategy. If the directors were not doing that then they should be fired on the spot because it'd be a clear case of negligence.

The same kind of approach needs to be taken here; the government are supposed to govern; they're supposed to consider things and then make decisions, and they're supposed to do it within a reasonable timescale.

Our government has shown negligence on every front by not bothering to consider/implement any strategies on anything.

With economic negligence nobody dies, but with the same negligence also being shown by our government when it comes to war that leads to death and serious injury. It's unforgiveable.

Labour; stop just talking about things, get some advice from some experts, and just do it, and do it now.
Plotters, quitters and fighters 8:42pm on 16 Nov 2009 "Which camp would you be in?"

If I were a labour MP, I'd be in the quitters' camp. Fighting an election when virtually everyone who's not a union member or unemployed despises everything I've done/said for the last 13 years would be soul destroying. I don't think labour MPs actually understand just how hated they are though; they still don't "get" how they've collectively destroyed the whole country.

But, as I'm not a labour MP, I'd be in the "I'd rather have rusty skewers inserted into my eyes than stay in a country which re-elects the labour party again" camp.

If they get in again, I'm off like a shot before sterling drops so low that the pound in my pocket becomes totally worthless and I can't buy a plane ticket, as will everyone else who can work at home using the internet. In fact I'm toying with the idea of holding some money offshore temporarily in usd to cater for exactly this problem.

If labour won again, the consequences would make the current economic situation look like a tiny un-noticeable blip.

They've got 25% of the vote according to the latest poll? Well, I'm guessing that 25% of the vote equates almost exactly to the percentage who are union members or unemployed; so that means that virtually everyone in the private sector will vote against them. Doesn't that tell you something, Nick? Remember, there's no such thing as "government money" - it all comes from the private sector. When the entire private sector rejects a government then that government needs to just call an election and then walk away (but not before saying that they're sorry for destroying the whole country)
Gordon Brown and the military 2:17pm on 13 Nov 2009 "He did not start this war. He cannot stop it"

He provided the money for us to get into this war; he could have turned down the request when he knew blair was lying about wmd, but the promise of getting to be PM if he kept quiet was more important to him.

He's now PM and can get out of the war if he wants to.

Brown's negligence is obvious and self-evident; even his own words prove how negligent he is.

When asked about sending extra troops, he said he would send extra troops, but only if they were properly trained and equipped. Now, call me old fashioned, but to me "troops" which aren't trained or equipped are, by definition, not troops, they're civilians or trainees.

His statement is like saying "I'll put someone in charge of the bank of england, but my caveat is that that person should understand something about basic economics" - it's a caveat which nobody should ever have to make; if you have to announce such a caveat then it's obvious you've got no idea what you're talking about.

And his blatent lies about resourcing generally show a breathtaking contempt of the military and the electorate.

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