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Shandon397

Listed below are comments made by Shandon397 between Friday, 24th April 2009 and Monday, 6th July 2009.

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Another council by-election 11:43am on 06 Jul 2009 Does anybody have any thoughts (humourous or otherwise) on what films Jeffrey was watching in London? And I thought MP's were supposed to be working late for their constituents rather than sitting on their own watching pay per view films.
"A fragile flower" 08:37am on 01 Jul 2009 Mr Justice Gillen was right in his judgment. All he has done is recognise that when it comes to the law and politics there is a dividing line, that not everything that happens in our political system can be - or should be - open to full legal scrutiny. Despite the ineptitude of our current Executive, the reality is that the power sharing (or power carving) arrangement we all agreed to is more like a difficult marriage than a legal contract. It is about developing relationships and compromises, ones that can only happen in private.

Never thought I would say that...

And to surprise myself this morning for a second time, assuming Paisley Junior's whistleblower isn't a figment of his imagination, then he is right to refuse to name his source. However, he was wrong to issue what was a threat to John Larkin. This is one of the clearest examples of a politician threatening a member of the legal profession I think I have seen. When will the Paisley's realise they are here to represent us, not to further their own family dynasty and impose themselves on the electorate? And why aren't the media making more of this threat?
Reducing Sir Fred Goodwin's pension 1:14pm on 18 Jun 2009 Robert

Interesting letter arrived at the office for me today from Bank of Scotland (Ireland). The letter announces a new Treasury Deposits department in Northern Ireland "with the aim of providing a new, higly competitive deposit service for all business sectors across the province".

Nothing wrong with that. And then:

"Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary Lloyds Banking Group plc, the largest retail bank in the UK. LBG plc currently has a strong AA credit rating and is one of only a small number of banks to hold this level of financial strength in the local market and benefits from a majority shareholding of 43% by the UK government"

My worry with this sales pitch is that Bank of Scotland (Ireland) are using the fact that it was bailed out by the taxpayer as a sales pitch. Should this be allowed? I wonder what banks who haven't needed a bail out would think about this. Surely this has the potential to distort the market?
"We haven't gone away, you know" 09:44am on 09 Jun 2009 Agree with you about Jim Nicholson, but at least he came through when it mattered. I'm not sure the Tories care about what Hermon will do now, who would want to be associated with Labour? A few defections would be great. I would like to see Simon Hamilton step away from the dark side, he is more Tory than DUP I reckon.

I think Diane Dodds has succeeded in two things, 1.bringing Jim Allister into the mainstream through her amateur approach to this election, and 2. alienating traditional DUP voters and activists simply be being chosen as the candidate. If I was a DUP activist, I would start to wonder why I am being asked to vote for family not party, particularly if I had political aspirations myself.
"We haven't gone away, you know" 08:27am on 09 Jun 2009 Well done Jim Nicholson, Sir Reg and Owen Patterson, Shadow Secretary of State, who should get a lot of credit for this victory by the Tories. Finally, we are starting to see the normalisation of politics here, even it was an inintended consequence of the presence of Jim Allister.

What now for the DUP and Peter Robinson? There are some similarities to Robinson and Gordon Brown. Both have no personality, they are control freaks with no vision (What is Robinson actually wanting to do for Northern Ireland as First Minister?), they spent years wanting to become leader, and when they did, they destroyed their core votes. Not great examples of politicians, or statesmen either.

I wonder does the media need to take some responsibility for the lack of coverage of a major Tory win here? Can you guys not get your heads around the normalisation of politics?
Labour's long night of painful firsts 12:34pm on 08 Jun 2009 #79 I think your question is a good one - "What is Labour for?" I remember a great article by Matthew Parris in the Times last year entitled "Gordon Brown the terrible vacuum". It summed up the problem. Brown is nothing more than a political animal, he doesn't have a strategic bone in his body, nor does he recognise that his complete lack of emotional intelligence scares off voters. We spent years thinking he was just hard to read; now we know there was nothing to read after all.

So any thoughts on what Labour is actually for, other than its own survival? Successful Governments should try and be re-elected on a mixture of fear and hope. Fear of what happens if they don't get in (we now have the BNP to help there) and hope for something new and different and exciting when they do. What could Labour, with or without Brown, do in terms of offering something new and different, and please don't start talking about "providing support for hard working families", the phrases are becoming as vacuous as the party that repeats them.
A count and a coup 09:07am on 08 Jun 2009 I assume it's some ancient rule they can't work on a Sunday!
Labour's long night of painful firsts 09:00am on 08 Jun 2009 Labour decimated in Wales, embarrassed in Scotland. Is this the end of Labour as a British party? Not that Labour in England looks that pretty either..
Taking the political mood 09:33am on 30 Apr 2009 It is interesting the three leading articles in the times today are all about how utterly useless GB is, the worst PM this country has ever seen. The articles are on 1. his announcement that Afghanistan, part of the crucible of terrorism, is going to see another..... 700 British troups, the Taleban must be running to the hills with worry, 2. the expenses debacle and 3. the Gurkhas defeat. IS GB's political radar in the same place as his supposed strategic brilliance?
The Purdy Robinson exchange 5:08pm on 24 Apr 2009 Thanks for doing this Mark and thanks to other bloggers for support on this. Could someone more tech savvy than me put this on youtube?

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