So will the “crap sandwich” make progress tonight?
October 1st, 2008
Have the markets been right to be optimistic?
So it’s back to another nail-biter over the bail-out bill - described at the weekend by the Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, as a “crap sandwich”.
This time it will be in the senate where there’s said to be more support than in the House of Representatives. The markets seem to be assuming that it will go through - given the way stocks have recovered.
We’ll see because if it doesn’t then who knows what will happen?
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
I think this wins the prize for the oddest thread title!
Alan Johnson’s spokesman:
“Alan sent a two-page letter personally addressed to David Cameron in his hand-writing, which expressed how sad he was to hear of the difficult time Mr Woods had been through, and of the distressing circumstances of his wife’s death.
“In fact, in his email Mr Woods does not claim his wife died of MRSA, he says that the death certificate specifically states that MRSA was not a causal link.
“Alan then went on to set out the options available to Mr Woods if he wished to make a formal complaint - and it is entirely proper and sympathetic for him to have done so.”
“Mr Cameron has been fairly creative with the way he has interpreted the correspondence.”
1 - Probably, although the thread contents will doubtless be much more odd.
Sorry to go off thread, but you people who read anything into speeches, perhaps the most manufactured, set pieced, rehearsed, contrived political events known to mankind.
Reading the last thread- all you so called intelligent people hinging on this claptrap, you should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.
New Insider Advantage poll for Florida :
McCain 46% .. Obama 49%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/IA_Fla_100108.pdf
Cameron exploiting the mis-treatment of an NHS patient for his own political advantage:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/3117698/Tory-Party-Conference-MRSA-death-shows-NHS-should-change-says-David-Cameron.html
Judging by the repetition Gabble is, actually, Gordon Brown!
6 lol, you really do take the biscuit
7 -
Gabble- welcome comrade. And a very big welcome indeed. This site has been slowly drifting into “Night of the Living Dead” as the zombies have overrun the more rationale minded.
Gabble…
please
JUST STOP
Should do. The Senate is much more hospitable to this sort of thing than the House, as Senators have longer terms, so are less worried about reelection, and have bigger name recognition so they are less likely to fall prey to one issue attacks. It’s also easier to get them to vote for something as there’s less people to reason with, persuade, bribe or blackmail.
4. tyson
You may have a point. Even on the Telegraph website, the top five viewed stories are:
1. The Atlas of the Real World
2. Girl who bleeds without being cut baffles doctors
3. Why propping up banks will not rescue a debauched financial system
4. Financial crisis: Western world will become significantly less wealthy
5. Government could halt Manny Pacquiao fight against oversized opponent :: Gareth A. Davies
Nobody is interested in Cameron, the king of spin, and his NHS lies.
6-As much as Blair or Brown exploit for their own aims.
The facts are that she died in appalling circumstances and that should not be allowed to happen in the UK in 2008 especially as the NHS has had so much resource thrown at it.
Go home Derek and your band of merry men.
11- Gabble please carry on. And more. Much more. We could do with a cull of some of the Tory headbanging loonies pervading these territories.
10 yes Tyson, someone claiming Cameron is using someone who died for their own political advantage really belongs with the ‘rationale (sic) minded’
lol
The CNN polls and the national polls out today confirm the state of the US Presidential race. Obama seems to have a stable national lead in the 4-6 point range. This is replicated across the swing states. In places like Florida and Virginia he is showing a similar lead to nationally. This assuages the fears some had that the Obama national lead was not translated into swing states. The significance here is that Obama has a bigger sustained lead than at any point since he won the nomination.
15 - Get a life!
16-Nice try Derek
19 you mean 15? If not, not sure why I am Derek!
15. Can’t we just be even handed and get rid of the real right-wing loons and the Gabble-like lefties?
11 - I welcome Gabble’s postings, on a health and fitness basis, because they provide a brilliant opportunity for me to exercise my right index finger as I scroll past them all…
The CNN polls are even worse for McCain when the third party candidates are included :
Florida
Obama 51, McCain 47
Obama 51, McCain 43, Nader 3, Barr 1, McKinney 1
Minnesota
Obama 54, McCain 43
Obama 53, McCain 41, Nader 2, Barr 1, McKinney 0
Missouri
Obama 49, McCain 48
Obama 47, McCain 46, Nader 2, Barr 2
Nevada
Obama 51, McCain 47
Obama 49, McCain 44, Nader 4, Barr 1, McKinney 0
Virginia
Obama 53, McCain 44
Obama 52, McCain 42, Nader 2, Barr 2, McKinney 0
16. Dyed in some wool somewhere
Perhaps, then, you could explain why Cameron chose to highlight Alan Johnson’s response to his enquiry, if not for political gain?
[21] - I’m sure there’s probably a way of writing a perl script to remove the posters you don’t want to bother with (for viewing on your own computer).
Lets get a bit of clarity on Cameron’s rant about MRSA.
Will it change the polls? No
Will it win Labour the election? No
Will it lose the Tories the election? No
End of.
18- might listen to the advice, but just ventured onto your blog and stumbled across the most ridiculous photo of yourself. You must be having a laugh.
26- does it show Cameron to be a calculating, opportunistic, lying pillock- YES.
Nick Palmer MP will defect come Monday! Why would he stay with Labour?
Labour have caused the problem in the UK, Nick is a pragmotist! A Clever guy! Why would he stay with a party thet means mass unemployment, which is what Labour now creates?
James Burdett
Did you actually go to the hairdresser’s and ask for a ‘Cameron’?
24 Because he believes in the NHS and was deeply disturbed by his constituents experience with the NHS as it is, and the government’s stewardship of it.
If by ‘political gain’ you mean - he wants people to vote for him on the NHS then well yes, thats kind of the idea of making a speech amd running for parliament.
If however you infer some dark purpose then I think its based merely on a desperate attempt on your part to find an ‘in’ - quite understandable for a left wing fan who does not like Cameron, but pretty easily dismissed - the lack of coverage of the issue as an ‘issue’ does that - its not like Johnson’ spokesman is particularly outraged is it?
30. Gabble
Do you actually think anyone cares what you think?
Back on thread
From Bloomberg
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) — The Democratic and Republican leaders of the U.S. Senate predicted that a $700 billion financial-rescue package would win approval tonight and urged opponents in the House to drop their objections to the bill.
“There are a few people in the House who would rather we did this some other way,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. “We’ve tried other ways. We’ve got to get this done.” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, forecast “victory” and urged the House to take up the measure, which is designed to end a credit crunch and restore confidence in the nation’s banking system
28. “does it show Cameron to be a calculating, opportunistic, lying pillock-”
What did Cameron say that was untrue? Wasn’t he just pointing out the ridiculous NHS bureaucracy?
And since when has a poltician not been calculating and opportunistic?
28. will it change anything?
No.
327 (last thread) If that is an accurate reflection of the view within the Labour Party, then they are entering terminal decline in Scotland and Wales.
The English, with their remarkable and an all-powerful language, and the Americans, with their all-powerful popular culture can look with ease upon multiculturalism — they will be the inevitable winners. A multicultural Britain (or more generally a multicultural world) is one in which the glue is the English language and American popular culture.
The Welsh and the Scottish want their more fragile but distinctive language, history, identity and culture to survive. Nothing in Nick Palmer’s vision for Britain gives me any hope that they will.
23. Jack W - do state polls on average have a longer time lag (between fieldwork and publication) than national ones?
I ask this only because today’s state polls seem to be reflecting Obama’s weekend surge in the national polls, whereas today’s national polls show the race tightening a bit.
“11 - I welcome Gabble’s postings, on a health and fitness basis, because they provide a brilliant opportunity for me to exercise my right index finger as I scroll past them all…”
Those polls are seriously poor for McCain, I still think it will be close but he needs something going his way in the next week or so.
30- I love the hand under the chin going on,and the thoughtful gaze into the distance. Quite lovely!
To give Gabble his due, he is persistent, I just think he’s wasting his time flogging his shoddy goods here, when there are so many web sites full of gullible idiots that might actually fall for it. Still, anything that stops Pb.C from becoming an echo chamber has got to be a good thing, imho.
Brown to carry out “limited reshuffle”. Looks like he’s been blackmailed by his ministers. So Flint for Kelly, and that’s it.
38. Nah. 6-8 point win.
New Insider Advantage poll for Nevada :
McCain 47% .. Obama 48%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/IA_Nevada_100108.pdf
David Camerons hit a never with the Labour supporters today. They know his speech was good and The Clunking One’s back in trouble!
31 - The problem is if Cameron misrepresented Johnson’s letter. His point about it being unacceptable for people to suffer is perfectly valid though (although any health-care system will have horror stories).
The focus on MRSA is interesting as well. According to this infections are down nearly 50% in the last few years.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/115487.php
30 - Personal attacks what a surprise.
David Camerons hit a nerve with the Labour supporters today. They know his speech was good and The Clunking One’s back in trouble
34- fair cop John D- calculating, opportunistic and lying- pretty much sums up our political elite
37 - I think that’s a factor, yes, although the national polls are tightening by only a point here and there and these state polls are beyond that margin.
37 - They tend to be less frequent which accounts for the lag.
48 - That I can certainly agree with Tyson, on a cross party basis!
BBC Ten`o`clock news pulling Camerons speech to shreds .
Says speech told little .
46- no James- just some consultancy advice. Not a great idea to reveal yourself in that manner.
That said at least you venture onto this site with your identity intact unlike the very many anonymous cowards here (including me)
52
I am not surprised given the coverage today. Its disgraceful, The BBC is meant to be unbiased.
BBC News focus group of 10 wasn’t really liking it. I wonder if going on for an hour plus, mentioning Thatcher and trying to be ’serious’ has worked against him somewhat.
However, I wonder this in the face of 10 souls from Staffordshire but I listen to what Mike says about narrative and it’s not exactly with Cameron.
23. Florida doesn’t make sense there. Nader takes 3% off McCain and nothing off Obama?
52. Another Draper drone appears…
BBC now saying a “limited reshuffle” will take place in the next few days.
OK, I’ll post this one time, and then I’m done with this. The issue with the MRSA death was about the abrud system of beurocracy that the NHS has if someone has a complaint about the death of a loved one (but this could apply to any issue someone has with the NHS) It wasn’t about having a go at Alan Johnson or his response per-se. Nor’ was it particularly about MRSA. I suspect Gabble and the other lefties faking outrage about this understand this, but just in case they didn’t, there you.
Brown to reshuffle in day or so - BBC
57. It’s rural white Democrats that don’t like Obama.
47 GIN do you really, really, think it was that good? I mean, deep down when you’re not cheerleading for the Tories on here?
I’m going to vote Tory next time almost certainly and I liked bits of the speech, but I really didn’t think it was particularly great and in places it was disappointing. It was actually pretty forgettable, and a missed opportunity I feel. He’s a good orator, which is why one expects more than that from him. Just my own take.
Gabble, I think maybe you’d do your cause more if you posted a little less frequently and a lot less repetitively?!
61 So typically Gordon to try and knock Cameron out of the nes.
64 even news
56. Again, these focus groups we see on the news after major speeches or budgets have no importance whatsoever. The only scientific way we’ll know what people (and by that I mean a large group of people, rather than individuals) thought to Camerons speech will be when the polling evidence appears. Gabbles already accepted Cameron will get a lift in the polls, and if he says so, it must be true.
Not sure if it will have been posted but the Mississippi senate poll from Rasmussen is an important one.
If the Democrats can get the previously out of reach seat here then, with Sanders and Lieberman, they are on target for sixty seats. Lunsford in Kentucky, Franken in Minnesota, Hagan in North Carolina, all must be in reach.
Wicker (R) 49%, Musgrove (D) 47%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_senate_elections/mississippi/election_2008_mississippi_senate_special
64. I rather fancy world news won’t be focussed on Cameron by tomorrow. There’s a fairly important vote coming up, you know lol!
Tom Bradby: Gordon Brown the clear winner over the conference season.
40. “To give gabble his due, he is persistant”. When you are being paid to do it, you have to do what is wanted.
61. Who cares? A handful of losers and incompetents swapping jobs.
51- comrade fleet- agreed again (beyond the fact that your site is a very entertaining place to venture);
calculating- first prize Mr Brown- no need for explanation
opportunistic- Mr Hague (do you remember the Billy Bandwagon thing going on)
lying- who else than one Mr Blair- believed his own lies which was very worrying
pillock- Mr Clegg (a prize one indeed!)
On this test of politicians Cameron isn’t too bad after all.
57 - Much of McCain’s vote is anti-Obama rather than pro-McCain. That they might vote for Nader as a protest is quite plausible.
The BBC coverage of the speech was shameless in it’s partisanship. Sadly conference was overrun with bien pensant media types as usual.
63. Yep, I thought it was excellent. Hit all the right notes. It was the fun, jokey, knock-about speech you would normally expect from an opposition leader. It was somber, serious and thought-provoking. Again, just my take.
I suspect most people will think of it as somewhere in between, but in any case it will be more than enough to give the Tories a decent lift when the polls come out tomorrow night.
63 “Gabble, I think maybe you’d do your cause more if you posted a little less frequently and a lot less repetitively?!”
It’s worth emphasising that there are many who read/post on pb.com are not party idealogues. Their vote is up for the taking.
And behaviour like that of the wretched Gabble is likely to have a counter-productive effect.
Cameron did well today. But he should have been more wise to dangers of quoting NHS horror stories. After Jenniefer’s ear, we all know there are two sides to the story.
This is basic news management stuff. You quote individual case stories at your peril. It’s never quite what it seems prima facie.
The Times describes the speech as ‘dull’ and overlong in tomorrow’s paper. But in the Telegraph Simon Heffer has said it was ’superb’. Not sure Heffer’s support is the greatest news for Cameron!
69. On what basis? Soaring to a twelve point deficit?
All the Tories (and they’re a hell of a lot more motivated and up for the fight than Labour are right now, despite the astroturfing) need to do is lead by example.
The direction is all one way. The Conservative Party is united. They just have to get to every voter. Not be threatening and intimidate bitterly like Labour does. 11 years in power. And the country basically bankrupt. Who would have thought it? What a mess to pick up. But the Tories i think will provide some hope where Brown never can.
76. Honestly, irritating as Gabble is, I doubt he is going to swing anyone’s vote. In fact, even suggesting he might is a bad idea, as it is a green light to other ‘Gabbles’ to keep posting mindless partisan inanities on here.
72 Still slightly concerned if Cameron is so nice, why in his only stint outside the Tories at Carlton he got the nickname “Satan”.
To me he’s a vain (admittedly very well packaged) career politician, who’s been on a calculated path to the top since he left uni if not before. In short, I just don’t buy it. Very suspect that he rose to fame just at the same time Blair was on the way out.
I love the way that it is being reported that Gordon is not having a major reshuffle because of “the economic crisis”. When everyone knows it’s because they all threatened to resign if moved.
In other news: Gordon to set up new “COBRA style committee” for economic crisis
69. I would agree with Bradby. When you look at the fact Browns days looked as though they could well be numbered in a matter of weeks before the conference season started, and now it *seems* he is safe until next summer, on that basis Brown has had the best conference season of the three.
However, its soon going to be back to buisness as usual, and if Brown is now safe until next summer, I don’t think you’ll hear the Tories complaining. Another rout at the June elections is inevitable and of course, if he can keep going until Mat 2010 all Conservatives across the land will rejoice!
74 - Perhaps, but I’m not sure to what extent that sinks in with the general public. I recall some data from a study carried out years ago during the height of the Sun’s support for the Tories… a high proportion of the readership believed the paper supported Labour, even then.
If an explicitly partisan paper can’t get it’s message across to it’s readers, who presumably seek it out and hand over their hard earned for it, rather than it being a kind of wallpaper to their life in the way the BBC is, I very much doubt the nuances of the BBCs liberal bias (admitted by Andy Marr) make an enormous difference.
New Rasmussen poll for Mississippi :
McCain 52% .. Obama 44%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/mississippi/election_2008_mississippi_presidential_election
IMHO, these kind of comments represent the Conservatives’ achilles heel:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4862453.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4860669.ece
The visceral hatred of Labour is really off-putting. We know Labour are useless, but there’s no point gloating over it. I don’t recall Blair ever falling into this hubristic trap.
64: you feel Gordon should leave Cameron in Loch Ness, MTF?
29: Martin, please desist - regular readers know you’re kidding, but it only takes one journalist to pick it up to land me with umpteen tiresome calls from eager reporters.
S&S (last thread): thanks for the friendly comments, and yes I agree that we are probably not that far apart on the issue in reality. I’m not at all in favour of wantonly demolishing traditions just because they’re national, and agree that there are dangers in modernising everything into a multinational puree.
Gwynfa: I only speak for myself here, so don’t take it as a general Labour view. But you’re right that national traditions in an environment dominated by another culture need more protection.
67 - My take FWIW on the Senate situation is this.
The Democrats are near certain to take two states (VA and NM). They have a clear advantage in three states (AK, CO, NH). They have a slight advantage in two states (NC and OR). There are then four states where they are behind but within striking distance (MS, MN, KY and GA).
To get to 60 they need to win all 7 races where they are ahead, plus 2 out of 4 of the ones they are behind in. If Obama wins big coat-tails will help in MS, GA and MN. It is unlikely but plausible. Going in their favour, historically Senate races tend to break one way or the other and big swings are possible (e.g. Reagan in 1980).
“David Cameron criticised for suicide joke in speech”
“Angela Samata, Trustee of Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide, said that Mr Cameron’s comment was “very insensitive” and could be “extraordinarily upsetting for people in our situation: people who have been bereaved by people who had perhaps jumped to their deaths”.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4862453.ece
New Rasmussen poll for Texas :
McCain 52% .. Obama 43%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/texas/election_2008_texas_presidential_election
76- gwynfa- pleeeeeeeese! Seriously,how many votes are up for grabs on pbCOM. Perhaps the most hardcore, entrenched, political, autistic, anoraks in the northern hemispehre in the whole history of existence.
84 - The reason Brown had a good conference was because of external events.
87 - “Tally-Ho!”
90. LOL! The things people will nit-pick over, honestly!
New Rasmussen poll for Tennessee :
McCain 58% .. Obama 39%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/tennessee/election_2008_tennessee_presidential_election
84 - Indeed - surely however good Cammo’s speech was, and I thought it was good, it’s clear that Brown has benefited from the opportunity to bestride the globe like the economic colossus he believes he is. Whether we like it or not, he is the winner, just on the basis of the background he has been presented with, and has secured his position in his party. What happens tomorrow, or next week, or next month, is another story.
And he’s got to get through the reshuffle without that all going ‘the way of the pear’ next!
O/T (and in Canada) Bob Rae and Ken Dryden think they have an October surprise:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081001.welxndryden1001/BNStory/politics/home
This looks small, but offers the Liberals the chance to wrap themselves in the maple-leaf.
I think people’s reactions to Gabble are disproportionate. He’s no more partisan than hundreds of anonymous conservative posters, it’s just they all merge into one blue mass.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7647546.stm
Watch this space..
95 - Quite, we seem to be having a complete sense of humour failure in this country.
The media discussion was interesting. Too bad I missed it. To sum up my very detailed thoughts (I study this stuff).
1. Journalists are left-wing tree-huggers. They are also way down in the media food chain and have their stories accepted or rejected by editors and owners who are fairly well-off and are no left-wing tree-huggers. Being a journalist is being a whore.
2. Public television usually has a strong left tilt (this is for the lovely BBC-hating Tories on this site). Private television on average has a slight right tilt because of their owners private interest. In general, however, it is fairly unpolitical because what counts is profit.
3. Unpolitical does not mean “fair and balanced”. Low journalistic quality and cost-benefit journalism means the media are easily manipulated. In other words, he who runs a better campaign gets the media. Nevertheless, media influence is often overestimated. Media can and will amplify EXISTING sentiments. Media can rarely plant sentiments.
In other words, John Kerry was kind of a douche and made for a great war coward (regardless of whether he was or not). By contrast, people already hate the Republicans this year and McCain’s campaign is simply not as good as Obama’s (at manipulating journalists). It’s not like they wouldn’t try…
Then there’s of course that study from after Obama’s Europe trip that showed that while the supposedly “fawning” media basically had him on 24/7, they were mostly critical. I’ll leave it to everyone’s imagination what would have happened if Wright had surfaced during the extensive coverage period.
81 Certainly, the partisan inanities are very irritating. And Gabble is only the most prominent of such posters.
But, speaking personally, the behaviour of some posters here has made me much less likely to vote the same way as I did in 2005 !
The Times says is that the speech was dull?
Thats alot nicer than they were to Gordon: they were scathing about his.
100 - Someonw up thread joked about COBRA and now it is happening… you couldn’t make it up!
83 - ‘In other news: Gordon to set up new “COBRA style committee” for economic crisis’
Oh great, another ineffective talking shop, that can dither and bottle out of action just like the other ones.
99. I’ve never minded Gabble quite honestly. Someone has to keep the red flag flying in these dark, dark times for the Labour Party. The isn’t a blog exclusively for Tories, so to the Gabbles and Rogers I say, keep going. In 18 months your leader will be put out of his (and our) misery and once in Opposition you’ll start to get your mojo back.
92 More people lurk & read than post. Doubt if your description is true of the lurkers.
90. This is just the problem with this country. I feel like an old buffer saying this ( am only 30 ) but you cant make a joke out of anything now, without somebody being “professionally offended” as a “victim”. This culture of not being able to crack any joke for fear of offending anyone is cretinous. Suicide is sad and traumatic yes, but surely anyone that takes offence at this kind of joke, even a suicide survivor, is rather too sensitive. Its like using this turn of phrase “Ooh - you should have seen the state of him - i nearly had a fit” and expecting offended people from the “epilepsy supporters society” to explode in rage. Its bonkers.
Never thought I’d see the day when Simon Heffer praised Cameron, but it’s finally arrived..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/3117484/Tory-Party-Conference-Superb-David-Cameron-speaks-up-for-Conservative-values.html
That’s gotta mean the speech was a game changer!
85. Thing about the Sun is a lot of people treat it as a comic. Like when people read the Sun in a works canteen a lot of them will make a big display of turning it to the back page and reading from there towards the front (i.e reading it for the sports pages).
If, from tommorow, the BBC reported every single english person that got stabbed, raped or killed by someone who was in the country illegally, nothing else, just the crimes committed by people who shouldn’t be here–then after the next general election the Labour party would have no MPs outside the ethnic majority areas. None.
New Suffolk Uni/WSVN poll for Florida :
McCain 42% .. Obama 46%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/docs/Suffolk_Final_Florida_10_01_2008.htm
“To give gabble his due, he is persistant”.
Most psychotics are.
101. Hopefully once we have a Conservative government sanity will be restored and people will be able to make tongue in cheek, slighly bad taste, but funny-none-the-less, jokes, without the world caving in. Under Labour everyone fears of upsetting everyone elses opinions, so nothing ever gets said.
107 - I think there is something rather admirable in the robustness of Gabble and Roger’s defence of their party. I am sure that were the position in the polls reversed there would be hardcore Tory loyalists on here putting their case with equal robustness. The all-party nature of this site, as well as the erudition and wisdom of many of it’s contributors, is a precious thing.
OK - I made myself feel ill now. Sorry.
But it is great that, unlike most other big political blogs in the UK, people of all parties come here to debate, argue, abuse and take the p*ss out of each other, and keep coming back.
The idea that the BBC were shamelessly partisan in covering Cameron’s speech is ridiculous. It’s not ridiculous to say there’s something of a liberal bias in their coverage but they were not biased this evening. These accusations of bias appear to come from Tory supporters and/or right leaning posters - I read it so often on here that I’m almost numbed by it. It’s so silly. How can such partisan people believe they know is biased and what isn’t?
115. Funny thing is, Roger apparently used to be a Tory supporter.
110 - If I was Cammo I would be bl**dy terrified to have provoked that reaction from the Heffalump. It is an item of faith for me that if Heffer says something then the opposite must be true!
RCP has advance notice of a Strategic Vision poll for Wisconsin :
McCain 40% .. Obama 49%
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/10/sneak_peek_obama_up_9_in_wisco.html
The clear result of the conference season for Labour is dramatically increased morale. This is hugely valuable. Labour should be happy. There is a renewed purpose and organisation.
It was impossible for Cameron to really improve his position so he should be happy if he maintains it and avoids a gaffe. Conference is a minefield.
Nick Clegg. I guess a few more people know who he is and there was that Luntz thing. But the squeeze is on.
If I had to pick a loser of the season it would be the Lib Dems.
BTW There are plenty of Tory rampers and trolls on this site. Gabble is pretty mind in comparison to some who really are nutty.
109: I don’t think the suicide joke will really have distressed many, but Pickles’ jibe that he was pleased to have made someone more ill was quite nasty - even as a joke - and he was right to apologise.
116 - apologies: “believe they know what is biased…” Some dodgy editing there.
115 - The sad thing for them is they don’t have a party to defend. Roger can only get motivated by anti-Toryism, he rarely says anything good about Labour. If he does it is always in the form of contrasting with what he sees as the evil Tories who joined the Conservative Party when they were younger and should have still had a heart.
Gabble tries to defend Labour more, but usually does so by arguing strongly for policies which they don’t actually have.
106 COBRA (cash bail out division) meets
Brown - ‘OK, we have a problem - I have no money for my lunch’
Merv the Swerve ‘I can do you £5 reapyable next week’
Brown ‘no good - I don’t want a f*cking baguette or crisps or the like, I want a decent steak’
Merv the Swerve ‘I am ot sure the public will appreciate the Bank of England funding your lunch - especially not a fat cat cooked lunch’
Brown ‘Bah let them eat cake, I am making the right long term decisions about lunch.’
Millipede ‘And don’t forget PETA - PETA won’t like the steak thing’
Brown ‘Oh hush up little man. Come on Mervyn what about it?? Can’t we get around this LIBOR nonsense and get me a steak?????’
Mervyn the Magnificent ‘OK, OK, we will fund you a steak but at a Wetherspoons’
Brown ‘ good, good…. now about the £500 billion for these bankers….. screw em??’
Millipede ‘yeah screw em, filthy capatilists’
King ‘I’m rolling my eyes right now for anyone reading this in the archives’
I have no problem with Gabble posting here, one can always scroll past the tedious twit if one desires; he is however the personification of what NuLabour has sunk to and therefore serves a purpose. He’s snide; dishonest and vacuous in the extreme, just the ticket to turn the floating voter away in droves but unfortunately not the way he hopes.
‘Dull’?
This is the full quote:
‘This was David Cameron, the finished article, comfortable enough to be traditional, even a little dull, as he presented himself as a future Conservative prime minister’
110 - Agreed! One of the reasons I support Cam is that he’s on the wrong side of the Heffa, so you’re right - it’s time to be very afraid that he may be becoming a Cameroon…
Here is an article with a misleading headline.
The headline ‘Pterodactyls couldn’t fly’, is a definate statement.
However half way through the piece it states that there is disagreement with this finding, (based on a Japanese scientist’s view), with the majority of scientists that study dynosaurs coming out against the Jap’s study.
This is typical of the frankly, loose stories that passes as journalism today. Many are the deliberately misleading stories related to our political situation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/01/sciptero101.xml
“Gabble tries to defend Labour more, but usually does so by arguing strongly for policies which they don’t actually have.”
And then there are the outright lies.
126 Nick Clegg also presented himself as prime minister and talked of lib dem govts.
115- Roger has never been a Tory. He flirted with the LD’s briefly.
123. Yes, I’ve said it before - Labour are psychologically in opposition already, and are actually quite happy with that. It’s what their really comfortable with, after all - and it’s their proper place in the scheme of things.
“Gabble tries to defend Labour more, but usually does so by arguing strongly for policies which they don’t actually have.”
I know. That is slightly odd but there are plenty of Conservatives who do the same for their party. E.g. tax cuts or restoring grammar schools.
Brown to re-shuffle. Banana man to go?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7647546.stm
128 - saw a great example of this in one of the papers the other day.
The headline was something along the lines of “National Grid warns that the lights could go out this winter”. The story was that the National Grid had released data on spare capacity in the system, and some third party had interpreted that as meaning that a danger that the lights would go out. The piece concluded with a comment from a spokesman from National Grid saying “there is no danger of the lights going out”
120. I agree Jonathan, I feel much more motivated after conference and actually considered restarting my standing order to the Labour party.
Cameron hasn’t really done anything wrong and has played a bad hand well. But it’s still been a bad hand.
Clegg remains hopeless.
As I have said before, I’m more anti-tory than I am Labour.
134 - No. It’ll be someone (Flint/McNulty?) for Kelly and that’ll be it.
130. Yeah, but nobody believed them.
Excellent Newsnight. Nearly 20mns into the programme and not a hint of that vacuous Mr Cameron
You know the banana thing was a promotional free gift handed out at the entrance to conference (free food v. usual). I guess whoever was giving them out has lost influence. Shows how careful you have to be.
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) — Hurley Goodall knows what it’s like to be first and black.
He has white Democratic voters in Muncie, Indiana, to thank for breaking a barrier when he was elected to the General Assembly 30 years ago.
“I am different, they know me,” said Goodall, 81, who also was Muncie’s first black firefighter. “I am just as black, but they know me personally.”
What worries Goodall is whether those same white voters in this town in the heart of the Rust Belt will feel the same way about Barack Obama.
Race is a powerful subtext of this presidential election, and its impact is largely hidden, with few white voters willing to acknowledge openly that they won’t vote for Obama because he is black.
It is a phenomenon documented when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who was black, lost the race for governor of California in 1982 after polls had projected him a winner, leading experts to conclude that white voters didn’t want to acknowledge their racial attitudes.
Whether that effect will be in play for Obama in states like Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan remains an important open question in the campaign.
A poll released Sept. 20 conducted for the Associated Press and Yahoo News found that Obama’s support would be as much as six percentage points higher if there were no racial prejudice among whites.
The Times leader.
Not too bad for Cameron.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4863902.ece
136 - Seems to me slightly strange that you should judge the situation more by the hand that they’ve had, rather than the way that they play it?
Newsnight misrepresenting the polls.
What are Cameron’s policies on the key issues? ie i) Afghanistan, ii) taxation, iii) the instability of the financial system, iv) crime and v) immigration.
Am such a seller of Tory seats right now…
O/T, not to say left-field, from Angus Monitor - an interesting idea (from a Finnish politician)? Can’t see why not, especially as it would help people fine-tune if they wanted, reinforcing or reducing an impending majority.
Vanhanen proposed that election results be made public as the votes are cast as a way to encourage people to participate in the democratic process. The prime minister also said that advance ballots submitted by absentees should be tallied and their results released at the end of each day. Vanhanen declared: “When people see the impact of the votes each day, enthusiasm for voting would increase and add vigour to campaigning as well.”
137- to be honest comrade Gabble, there is not much to be pro Labour about, BUT and it is a BIB, BIG, BIG, BUT, everyday they keep the Tories out of Govt is a happier day for me. And for that I am truly thankful.
146 - You’re more volatile than the stock market. Does your wife keep nicking your username?
So far I’ve only seen ITN News at 10’s coverage of Cameron’s speech. Agree with Mike from the previous thread that the reference to his wife was a bit cringeworthy.
The overall impression is of a serious measured speech given in serious times, seeking to demonstrate his preparedness to be PM.
What struck me most of all was his unashamed reference to Margaret Thatcher and her similar lack of experience to himself when she succeeded Callaghan as PM. This looks like clear blue water to me. Is this a risky strategy? Maggie is still anathema to many voters, including some floating voters. But she also took over when Britain’s economic prospects were poor and took tough decisions.
Interesting.
144. I mean that Cameron has suffered over the conference season, but not because of his own actions.
148 Good post. Fair comment.
146. I can’t remember the last time I voted for Labour in a GE, if ever. Whatever it takes to keep the tories from power is OK by me.
148 - Is she actually an anaethema to floating voters? What is the evidence for this? Most agree that it was in the nineties that the Conservative lost the floating voters, not before.
Invoking Thatcher risks motivating the Labour base, but is that a problem?
My missus has just dropped the bombshell that she was at school with Samantha Cameron (nee Sheffield) and her sister.
I will interrogate her thoroughly for interesting (or better, scandalous) information.
Michael Crick:
Cameron: 7/10
Brown: 7.5/10
Crick - ‘I gave Cameron 7/10, Brown 7.5/10 last week’…what a laugh
149 - Not sure about that? Do you think he looks less like a PM in waiting now than he did before, which was his main challenge?
Crick being complimentary, but clearly he’s got something to come later.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/des_moines_register.html
Cameron always reminds me more of Ted Heath than Maggie. A Tory leader crafted firmly in the image of a successful original Labour leader, leading his party from the left. Physically they’re similar too. Heath took a difficult economic situation and made it worse. Eventually defeated by the right of his party.
Crick given 30 seconds on Newsnight to talk about Cameron.
He’s got a big splash coming up to talk about Thatcher.
Eh?
156. Yes I do. Because of the financial crisis and the general association between tories and bankers. Not his fault but he will still suffer because of it.
144 Why don’t you email them. I do. I know its abit sad but if they get enough of them they may just realise they have been rumbled or, giving them the benefit of the doubt, do some research.
I emailed the Daily Politics today. Its bad enough that they have a useless poll and go on to misrepresent it, but the BBC [we] paid for that one.
Only marginally more productive than moaning on here, I know.
153- glad to see that you and wife talk to each other. Not.
152- Thatcher’s history has been caricatured in such a way that she alienates everyone other than headbanging, frothing, rabid, foaming, Tory loonies, the kind of nutters that swarm on this site in their droves
160 - I would be surprised if many would agree with that.
I can’t see how this week has done anything but enhance his credibility as a potential PM.
Sure Gordon may have improved his position relatively (a temporary blip, I believe), but that’s not to detract from the above.
154. I’ve been on the edge of my seat all night waiting for Cricks judgement!
Great analysis on Whitehouse race here:
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/09/30/so-who-s-winning-now.aspx
@145
Some issues that I can see with that:
1) Organised mass voting early in the day to give the impression that a particular seat is firmly in one party’ hands, or even discourage lots of voters from a party that is behind.
2) It would favour any party with more supporters who have low motivation. (Labour in the UK, lots of supporters, fewer at the polls).
3) It would favour richer and better organised parties that could engage in last minute GOTV.
4) Ambushes at the last minute, where polling is desultory and then a last minute well organised rush by supporters of one party.
None of these are definite reasons not to do something like this, but some suggest this move would be less democratic. Then again you have the countries where they ban exit polling and canvassing on the day, an equally odd idea.
158. Seconded, that’s a fair comparison. Though he is clearly a more natural politician and campaigner than Heath ever was.
162 - “headbanging, frothing, rabid, foaming, Tory loonies”
And Gordon Brown, of course.
Brown deserves the higher rating for turning things around and specifically the “no time for novice” line which stuck in the claw of the Tories all week and effectively determined Cameron’s speech.
148. She’s anathema to some middle of the road types because of the “survival of the fittest” aspect. It’s mostly hard core Labour voters though and McBean already shot himself in both feet on that score when he invited Thatch to number 10. That moment was a big part of how Labour killed themselves in Scotland imo and partly nullified the Thatch card in Labour vs Tory battles, though not in SNP vs Tory ones.
159 - agree that right side of party will ultimately remove this wet. But who would it be? Easy to see the tax rises and economic gloom making him unpopular - I give him one term. This is no time for his style of politician. Brown will probably be herded back in as chancellor in 2015 by Milliband.
154
Gabble , that is truly the most pathtic post I have ever seen on PB.com. If you really think that anyone gives a monkeys what Michael Crick thinks, then you are even more deluded than I thought.
Crick is getting to be a bigger pr-ck every.
152. alex. Floating voters now include some voters who for years have voted Labour and are now considering voting Conservative for the first time. For many in this group Thatcher is likely to be an anathema.
162 - We sometimes share a word or two when shaking hands in the morning when I leave for work
In fairness she has precisely zero interest in politics, and even less in expensive stationery, so one way or another the subject never arose!
I have been informed, and I quote, ‘it was 20 years ago, and if you seriously think I am going to tell you anything so you can tell all those weirdos on that blog you can forget it’
So no juicy info, alas.
It is not for Crick or any BBC journalist to give their rating of any politician
I don’t care what score he gives them - he should keep his opinions to himself. We want objective analysis - not an ego on parade
172. It’s just so funny the way he and his fellow Labour hacks on Newsnight sit there solemnly pretending to be passing objective judgements. Who are they trying kid?
Place the Face?
Are you kidding?
How f**king infantile and pointless
Michael Crick is like a rogue poll: people love to cling to him when he’s telling them what they want to hear but he should be taken with a healthy dose of sceptisism.
Jesus Christ, this is a joke.
163. We’ll agree to disagree.
177. Yes, nice to see the license fee being used so well. Such quality content.
Brilliant to see Ted Heath last though - quite right. Not a Tory at all.
Presumably the re-shuffle will be at 3am tomorrow morning.
given how bad the state polls are for mccain today, can we expect the real strong negative campaigning to start soon?
177 - It is not as bad as local election coverage… or maybe it is
Interesting to hear the comments on here. The left are out in force. Just because you didn’t like what you heard doesn’t mean it was a bad speech. I think if anything Cameron proved how adept a politician he is - this does not bode well for GB or Labour in an election. They would be doing so much better with Alan Johnson or Jack Straw, affable and innocous.
I do think the BBC have been a disgrace. I noted last week that one of their supposed floating voters always voted labour in their words. Now I would think the first question you would ask to find out if someone is a floating voter or not is do you always vote for one specific party?
by ChrisP October 1st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Lol Churchill greatest POST WAR PM
Can I have some of whatever Gabble’s on? Must be pretty powerful stuff, given the dozens of spam posts today.
Stories abound thaty some additional clasuses in the Bail Out bill designed to help bring Republican House members may well see a few Democrats oppose the bill..whilst not moving more GOP votes in favour.
This is tight, but will it be a case of come Friday the House will blink?
Crick’s game redeems itself!
Gordon Brown is the worst PM.
173. There’s a spectrum tween those people in the old industries that lost their jobs during Thatch’s time and those who bought their council house because of her. In some cases there’s people who are in both groups. Because of that, in the south Thatch is a lot less of a negative than in other areas. Multiplied in Wales and Scotland because of the whole “English” Tory angle.
161 FWIW , I thought it a reasonable speech by Cameron today certainly not great and not worthy of all the rear orifice licking comments made by sycophantic Cameroonites on here . Interesting that they rush to criticise and ridicule anyone who takes a contrary view such as gabble and trot out their usual BBC bias wailing .
Looks like DC impressed the Sun in tomorrows Leader.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece
Finkelstein isn’t going to win any slimming prizes these days.
On topic. The Senate is much more likely to pass this bill, even if it gets through, something similar needs to go through the House. The size of the majority in the Senate might be a small pointer to whether a new version gets through the House.
It’s a lousy bill, but it appears to be the only game in town. Monday shook up the complacent and I think something will get passed.
What is as interesting on this point is the blanket Irish guarantee and the reactions from Europe and the UK. Thanks to the level of panic, I think the Irish solution (full guarantee for everything including interbank loans) plus recapitalisation and repricing of assets is actually the way forward. It will be interesting to see what actions occur in the European context as much as the voting in the US.
190
!!!!
that is the best post I have ever seen on PB.com/ succinct and to the point.
“Is he up to the job? The Labour-leaning BBC was not impressed . . . always a good sign.”
OK, we all know the Sun is owned by the guy who would like to run it out of business, but if the casual politics follower reads that and starts to believe it…
191. MrJones. That’s what I found so interesting. Cameron will not have chosen to associate himself so directly with Thatcher without a lot of forethought and consideration of the pros and cons. He must think it was worth doing.
Yes, Michael Crick is pretty hard to defend.
There were two sensible [and matching] comments from the political press today, which reflected some of the opinion expressed on here.
Bradby and Pinear both said that this speech/conference was not about now, when the Tories are expecting the electorate to stick with what they know [cling to nursey] and stick with the Government, whatever they perceive their faults to be. Its about what happens in the months to come when recession sets in.
I got the impression the Tories had actually spoken to Pinear and he thought they were fatalistic about the short term poll ratings. They were taking a mid to long view.
Quite the opposite from Gordon!
I particularly liked this in the Sun’s Leader,
“Is he up to the job? The Labour-leaning BBC was not impressed . . . always a good sign.”
Classic from the sun
Is he up to the job? The Labour-leaning BBC was not impressed . . . always a good sign.
Will it be the sun wot won it
201 snap
What was Cricks later piece saying I missed it.
201/203 - beat you
198. I agree. I think his timing is pretty good.
192 FWIW I think that is a fair post.
Well the first sentence anyway.
Not everyone is impressed though:
http://tinyurl.com/3hjjeh
204 - It was just his “place this face” game. Thatcher came third, Brown came last.
Apparently this showed this risks of Cameron invoking Thatcher…
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article4864032.ece
Brown to set up economic Cobra-style body to respond to crisis.
Pat 193. From this afternoon.
The Sun will like this.
by Sally C October 1st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Fleet of Worlds; may I say that I found your blog is as witty, perceptive and entertaining as I find your posts here….. or shall I not mention it?
Thing about Thatch is, forgetting the policy details, she’s associated with being tough. There’s pros and cons associated with various bits of Thatch’s policies but there’s a definite pro in the toughness angle when things are looking bad.
Just not in Scotland
209 somewhat less risky than actually being Brown though, based on that evidence!
Perhaps chaps at some point we could turn away from politicking and talk about punting. Maybe? Thank heavens for the posters focusing on the US. Lets hope that after conference the saddos take their chuntering elsewhere. Remember folks - if you punt on your political prejudices you’ll probably lose (unless you’ve been laying John McCain all summer, in which case you’re probably laughing…)
I’m not a fan of senior Tories decision to offer cross-party support to the Gordon Brown’s management of the “Credit Crunch” or more appropriately Credit Correction.
If, their aim is to show “statesmanship” this can only be achieved by campaigning for Gordon Brown’s resignation, which has a proven track record of success i.e. Bill Clinton’s impeachment delivered the electoral defeat of Al Gore in the following election. I’ve always been of the opinion that whomever had stood as the Republican presidential candidate for that GE would have won. The defeat of the Al Gore is vastly more impressive because the American economy was tanking along under the Democrats (fuelled by easy credit, which in hindsight looks a bad way to achieve GDP growth).
Secondly, by offering cross-party support for Gordon Brown will only taint senior Tories message of difference and improvement in choosing them. It is certain that McCain’s presidential campaign has taken a significant knock from his association with George Bush’s “bailout” for Wall Street; he has become contaminated by his acts of inter-party support. I seriously doubt offering cross-party support for Gordon Brown is going fare any better!
Of course, the GE will not be for another 2 years and such positioning can be corrected in the fullness of time. Anyway, unlike the America, which is through the worst of its economic woes Britain is only just getting started! As this situation appears switching to an alternative strategy against the Labour Party will guarantee victory!
210 Anything to bypass Alistair Darling as GB can’t trust him anymore. Can you see GB letting Blair do this to him.
212 - You’re too kind (or at least I hope you are - you might be being sarcastic!
)
2 Gabble. I don’t know why you bother to post such rubbish. If you listened to what DC said, his disgust was aimed(quite rightly) at the response to Mr.Woods’ grief which was totally heartless. Of course Johnson will respond personally (much later than the event) to a letter from the leader of the Opposition, he cannot afford not to.
Gabble is one of the best running jokes at PB. Lighten up, folks.
158 brilliant analysis there.
1 find historical figure who cocked up
2 compare David cameron to him
genius
gabble, jonathan, roger, frances, dez et al, it’s all been a bit negative today. Anyone got a reason why I should want to keep the current lot rather than giving the competent looking opposition a chance?
I think the line today - it’s not more of the same we need, but change really resonates. How will brown counter? I really would like to know because if you lot are representative of the bunker crowd then i may put some money on arrogant labour losing more heavily than they expect. Admiteedly this already seems to happen in locals and by election - they come out early with a line to manage expectation, but tend to massively underestimate their unpopularity.
219. Svejk.
Wrong. Cameron was referring to Johnson’s reply to Cameron:
“I sent the letter to Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary.
This was his reply.
“A complaints procedure has been established for the NHS to resolve concerns… “
213. Yes. I think this association with Maggie might be electorally quite shrewd and as you say well timed. Bit risky too.
198. But it was such a dubious comparison in a whole number of ways. I’m sure others will have pointed this out earlier, but Mrs Thatcher went into the 1979 election with three-and-a-half-years’ experience as a cabinet minister under her belt - Cameron hasn’t even been a junior minister. Also it seemed slightly gratuitous to appear to still be slagging off the now deceased James Callaghan twenty-nine years after the event.
However, I certainly agree with his general thesis that experience is a convenient excuse used by incumbents - and indeed one used by plenty of Tory politicians in the past. I recall Jeffrey Archer bravely trying out a curious variant of it once on a visit to Scotland - he patiently explained to the natives that, as they knew perfectly well that the Tories would be elected with the votes of southern England anyway, it was incredibly stupid of them to stubbornly keep voting for other parties. Just vote for the governing party, was his message - it’s so much simpler for everyone.
208 Should we really be suprised that mrs andrew marr wasn’t impressed by DC
Even the normal compliant Daily Mail says
In the Cloud-Cuckoo-Land of the Labour conference last week, Gordon Brown reeled off a long list of extravagant new spending commitments, from bedside computers for NHS patients to nursery places for all two-year-olds.
In Birmingham yesterday, Mr Cameron took his stand firmly on planet Earth.
2224 anything positive to say about the labour party - didn;t think so
hat-trick
216 - the offers of assistance by the Tories were as much to neutralise any Labour bounce from the economic hoohah as anything.
Or to put it another way - had the Tories decided to come out all swashbuckling, the mood earlier this week would have been somewhat more negative.
This week, I think we saw David Cameron more or less guarantee he’ll be the next PM, simply because he’s got the nous to know what to say and when to say it.
Unfortunately this totally unecessary bill will pass, putting American (and British if Obama has his way) on the hook for a lot of money.
However, I am going to make the following prediction:
After the 2010 Congressional election at least one third of the current members of the House of Reps will no longer be in Congress.
Obama (if he is elected) is going to have to raise taxes and abandon his spending plans as soon as he gets in because of Paulson’s folly. This will lead to a massive GOP landslide.
A sad, sad day.
218- Sarcastic” me, heaven forbid.
Seriously, I enjoyed it very much and it was Tyson’s flattering comments the other night that led me to it.
221 Tory Sycophancy vs Labour “negativism” - a classic pb.com day during a leaders speech. Any negativism you see from Labour posters is mild compared to the personal bile you chuck at the prime minster.
No claim to great analysis re. Cameron vs Heath, but from day one Cameron has always reminded me of Heath. Heath was a reaction to Wilson. Cameron is a reaction to Blair. Both led their party from the left. Your man compared himself to Thatcher.
As for dealing with the change theme, it doesn’t always win. It is ironic that the Tories are borrowing their slogan directly from Neil Kinnock circa 1992. Labour have a hell of lot to offer if the public choose to stay put. The great thing about this conference season is the renewed energy in the Labour camp. Good news all round.
Night all.
FWIW
My analysis of polling trends is at the link below. Essentially my regression analysis shows that McCain had a positive linear trend (and was on course to win by 2-3%) up until his decision to name Palin. He then lost a few points is currently on a polynomial trend with Palin’s speech boosting him for a few days and then dragging him down thereafter.
http://politicaltipster.com/2008/10/01/why-mccain-is-doing-so-badly/
226. If that cryptic comment was directed at me (as it appeared to be), you’re wasting your energy heckling me on that score. I’m as far from being a supporter of the Labour party as it is possible to be, so I probably wouldn’t be making a positive comment about them even if there was one to be made.
231 - “Labour have a hell of lot to offer…”
Surely that should be:
“Labour have a lot of hell to offer…”
236 … To the conservative party.” Sweet Dreams
212 - I wish Brown would stop fiddling away with his shadow government and micromanaging. Why not just get rid of the completely inept FSA and restore the powers back the BOE?
For Gabble a gift. The section of Cameron’s speech on the constituent. You might note that it is not quite as you paint it.
In August, I got a letter from one of my constituents, John Woods. His wife was taken to hospital. She caught MRSA and she died. Some of the incidents described are so dreadful, and so degrading, that I can’t read you most of the letter. He says the treatment his wife received “was like something out of a 17th century asylum not a 21st century £90 billion health service.” And then, as his wife’s life was coming to end, he remembers her “sitting on the edge of her bed in distress and saying ‘I never thought it would be like this’.” I sent the letter to Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary.
This was his reply.
“A complaints procedure has been established for the NHS to resolve concerns…
“Each hospital and Primary Care Trust has a Patient Advice and Liaison Service to support people who wish to make a complaint…
“There is also an Independent Complaints Advocacy Service…
“If, when Mr Woods has received a response, he remains dissatisfied, it is open to him to approach the Healthcare Commission and seek an independent review of his complaint and local organisation’s response…
“Once the Health Care Commission has investigated the case he can approach the Health Service Ombudsman if he remains dissatisfied….”
A Healthcare Commission. A Health Service Ombudsman. A Patient Advice and Liaison Service. An Independent Complaints Advocacy Service. Four ways to make a complaint but not one way for my constituent’s wife to die with dignity. We need to change all that.
Twopoints before bed.
Post speech poll for Brown but not for Cameron. Anyone with a suspicious mind might think the MSM had already decided their story line.
Cameron’s mention of Thatcher. This does seem a risk. I suspect a calculated one. Some will pick up on it and like it, some won’t. For now he [hopes] can pass it off as a homage to an unwell elderly leader.
But I suspect he is looking ahead of the curve; the economy is tanking. We are going back to some of the conditions associated with the end of the last Labour administration.
He needs people to understand, new is not necessarily weak. Though I suspect he will want to soften it up somewhat. Having heard him talk quite openly, he is a One Nation Tory at heart. He knows what was right with Thatcherism and what was WRONG with it.
That’s why I ‘joined up’.
237 - Thanks, I hope they’re sweet dreams but as I rarely remember any of my dreams I doubt I’ll ever know.
You sleep well too. 
“Labour have a hell of lot to offer if the public choose to stay put.”
Like compulsory fingerprinting for all — and having to pay for the ‘privilege’ too!? A compulsory SatNav in your car connecting you 24/7 to Inspector Knacker!?
Wow. Gabble reports Crick’s view of the speeches, which is mildly interesting as he’s a TV journalist, though as the verdict is almost tied it doesn’t matter much. MTF at 171 seethes: “Gabble, that is truly the most pathetic post I have ever seen on PB.com.”
MTF, that is truly the most hyperbolic criticism I’ve seen on pb.com for, oh, at least two days.
The Sun ‘ensdorses’ Cameron (of sorts).
He ‘is ready’ according to The Sun Says:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece
243 - Keep claiming those expenses Mr Palmer.
The only Crick item worthy of repeat is that the great British readers of the Newsnight blog think Brown is - have I got this right -the worst post war PM.
As the Sun has now said Cammo’s ready I think Murdoch has decided he’s happy with the Lisbon Referendum - even the Mail has kind words and Janet Daley saying nice things about him shows his speech got the coalition thing right - I think Nick P is correct, we’ll see 15% tory leads and a new MP for broxtowe in 20 month’s time.
Sorry to come in a bit late, but - even as a Lib Dem - I thought Cameron’s suicide joke was very funny. He delivered it well (after all, he is a good actor); but it was directed principally, I thought, towards the Wall Street Crash (topical) and the desperate speculators (again topical) who threw themselves over the edge when things went wrong (as an enduring Brown government would be).
Heck, if we can’t make jokes involving sad things, where are our defences against depression?
There are lots of things to criticise in Cameron and his cohorts (as Gabble well recognises - keep going, Gabble!), but cracking a good joke is not one of them.
On the subject of the Newsnight survey, it’s interesting to see Tony Blair placed at sixth, and effectively third out of the six Labour PMs to date, behind Harold Wilson. In my view that’s a far more realistic assessment of his legacy than Cherie would have us take, and I don’t think another twenty or thirty years will budge it much.
Wilson’s reputation seems to be enjoying something of a minor renaissance of late.
195. Looks like he’s got The Sun then? Will Brown now be subjected to the full wrath and ridicule of the Murdoch emipre in the same way John Major was in the mid 90’s?
249 - Did you click on the cartoon at the bottom?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece
It’s the biggest endorsement of Cam I can remember. Front page is Can we fix it? YES WE CAM. With a pic of DC as Bob the Builder.
247
I guess it’s the PC infection after 11 years of New Labour that there is no longer such a thing as a harmless joke.
There will always be someone,somewhere,sometime that will be offended or at least pretend they are offended.
245 - Post which war? Crimea? Peninsular? Thirty Years?
Seems like the press is viewing camerons performance as pretty good, as are most newspapers. the beeb stood out as being pretty blatantly biased today not even pretending to be even handed in their approach of this weel’s and last week’s conference -and i think there will be a fair few complaints. The Big Labour Love-In last week obviously swept up a few BBC journos into it with promises of god knows what. they have repaid Brown today. Thankfully i think Cameron’s popularity amongst the public and Labour’s sourness will show through and i dont expect the polls to move much from where they were before the conferences started.
Guido clocked that one sometime ago, still who cares, what influence does the Sun have over it’s 1.1/2 million readers?
http://www.order-order.com/2008/10/sun-shines-on-dave.html
Gushing comment article in the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/10/02/do0201.xml
By the way, John Curtice said on Newsnight Scotland tonight that he felt the Labour bounce might be partly sustained, and that consequently it was possible that the outcome of the Glenrothes by-election was not quite as certain as it appeared a couple of weeks ago. So that sent a slight chill down my spine, but presumably it’s all guesswork at this stage. And also, the SNP conference is still to come, so that should help even things out - as long as the broadcasters play fair and give it the proper coverage.
I think the Sun follows it’s readership.
2. That misses the point which David Cameron was making - the plethora of complaints procedures, rather than investment in cleaning hospitals properly.
On the list of Asperger symptoms, I got 21 yeses, 6 noes, and about 2 I wasn’t sure about.
Mr.Loony, I’ve noticed recently that you regularly turn up late for the show, must be very frustrating for you, work late?
254. The Sun is a political weather vein. I don’t think it has much direct influence over the way people vote, but its very good at picking up where its readership is “at” I’m sure they have known for some time that Cameron pretty much has the election in the bag, they have just been waiting to pick their moment to make the switch. Clearly they thought this was the time.
I would just add that I think the Murdoch Press generally was more important in the 90’s, than is the case now. What they did in the mid 90’s, along with an alliance with Max Clifford and Alistair Campbell, was to systematically undermine and destroy John Majors credibility with so called “Tory Sleaze” I was the most cruel, ruthless, but effective press operation I’ve ever witnessed and ubdoubtedly it went a long way to securing Blairs landslide. Things are very differant now of course, and I doubt Brown and Labour will face the wrath of the Murdoch empire in the way John Major did, so thankfully, we won’t have the prospect of a government being undermind and destroyed by The Sun and News of the Screws.
255 Balanced by an equally gushing love in from Mary Riddell towards Gordon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/10/02/do0202.xml
If she’s to be believed the stress and excitement has unhinged the community at No 10
“Mr Brown, once denigrated by Mr Cameron as an arch-ditherer, can suddenly do anything he wants. An unpopular reshuffle in the next few days? “Don’t rule it out,” an insider says. Most radically of all, I understand that Mr Brown is actively considering whether Britain should join the euro.
While there are no “imminent” plans, the notion will be in the ether when European leaders meet this weekend to discuss the crisis.
“There are no certainties left,” says someone close to the Prime Minister. “We just don’t know where we are. We’re talking about saving the UK as we know it.
If it all goes bottom up, we could be looking at the end of capitalism. It’s about banging heads together, getting the regulatory structure sorted and restoring confidence. That is what government is for.”
Join the Euro?
The end of capitalism?
Save the UK as we know it?
Cut down on the Red Bulls boys.
254 - I think you’re quoting Express readership rather than Sun. The Sun sell over 3million copies a day, with a readership obviously much higher than that
I didn’t think that Cameron’s mention of Thatcher was a negative. His point was that a novice was chosen ver a man wiuth experience. If mentioning Thatcher by name has been interpreted negatively by floating voters, then perhaps he should have phrased it differently “luckily, the voters replaced him with a novice who had only been in the cabinet for three years” or some such.
Not a great speech from DC nor a poor one but one which was appropriate given the current economic situation. I think that the conference has shown that the party has a credible government in waiting. The global economic crisis shunted reporting of it to one side which was an advantage, perhaps, in that some policy announcements received headlines but escaped scrutiny.
257 & 261 – More precisely, I think Murdoch follows the mood of the Nation and prior to a GE switches tack accordingly…which by coincidence follows the mood of the ‘majority’ of Sun readers.
Is it really 3 million? Good lord.
Another few hundred thousand for the website too. Need to mention that for obvious reasons
231- That’s a pretty bold prediction. I don’t believe I’m in a position to be predicting numbers like that yet, but I do agree that 2010 is likely to be a good year for the GOP. Presuming that Obama wins with big congressional majorities, the playing field will much resemble that existing in 1993-1994, which of course set the stage for the GOP revolution in 1994.
If the economy/Iraq/debt/deficits/taxes set up Obama for failure right out of the starting gates, the shine will come off his image, and that of the Democratic Congress, pretty quickly, especially since there will be no Republicans around to blame for their inability to remedy the situation. American voters will not stick with the Democrats the way Brits have stuck with Labour for so many years. Americans expect results and they expect them quickly. If results are not forthcoming, they look for somebody to blame. If there is only one party to blame, they will soon reap the whirlwind. This is the story of American politics.
260. Er… it’s frustrating if I post a few mesages at the end of a thread and then find a new one has appeared just as I’m going. On the other hand, it’s satisfying if I manage to post at the beginning of a new thread before I log out. “Work late”? I don’t have a proper “job” (in the traditional bourgeois sense of the word) if that’s what you mean. My job is being a politician. When I’m reading a book by Lenin, or going to a Party conference, or attending a lefty meeting, or going on a march or demonstration, or researching political stuff on the web, then that is what I consider my work to be. In between “working” I do bourgeois things like watching EastEnders or Big Brother or eating chocolate biscuits, or doing research for WAAAAGH. (That last bit is a euphemism - if you work out what WAAAAGH is you might get what I mean).
262. As each day goes by, I think the evidence grows stronger than Brown is completely and totally loopy! Surely not even he can be deluded enough to think he has the authority, courage and political clout to get the UK to join the euro? Not even Blair at the height of his populaity could do taht! Brown is living in cloud cukoo land. How long before the mutterings within his party begin again? This weekends polls?
270. Well, the principle reason that Blair couldn’t get Britain into the euro is that Brown wouldn’t let him.
A quick comment on the “Irish bailout”, as it might be of interest to UK posters. I am not sure that the Irish government’s plan is wonderful, but it had two merits at least: it made explicit what is, in effect, implicit: that deposit holders would be compensated
in the event of the failure of a bank. It also applied the principle of overwhelming force; the guarantee is for 400bn euro, which more than covers the total of deposits in the banks in question. Finally, the package hints at the government acting as a facilitator of mergers between the banks. My hunch is that one or
two of the smaller institutions among the protected six will be absorbed, but that the government is not taking an undue risk in acting as the ultimate guarantor of the deposits.
However, I am not alone in thinking that it does not address the reason that Irish banks have seen particularly severe falls in
the stock prices (relative to UK banks for instance), but that this was an essential step.
The situation here was quite acute on Monday evening, with the stock market down 13.5%, and the financials (the companies covered by the guarantee) recording one-day losses. Our FSA-equivalent approached the government after the close of the market and informed them that action was needed before the markets opened the following market.
There is a line of thinking that the Irish banks’ stated debt positions underestimate their indebtedness, and a number of US funds have been taking significant positions against them. Anyone
who has been in Ireland recently (and on the roads orbiting and leading out from Dublin particularly) will see plenty of “ghost estates” and apartment blocks; built, finished, and empty. Some banks have had particularly aggressive strategies in lending (both to new mortgage holders and to developers - always a feature of any good Irish scandal) and the extent of their bad debt is very likely understated. This is what the international funds are betting on at least. Also, it is not improbable that the government may have to engage in a bailout involving real cash up front, as opposed to gauarantees. This could well be along the lines of the Swedish bailout in the early 1990s: although there is a liquidity problem in Ireland (like everywhere else), the hidden indebtedness and serious undercapitalisation of the banks means that government may need to absorb the debt associated with these non–performing assets, allowing the banks to recapitalise with government taking equity. The undercapitialisation may be the kicker here. My instinct is that we are in deeper than you, so perhaps greater activism may be warranted.
On a lighter note, Newsnight used some ancient stock footage yesterday (Tuesday), with punters taking IR pounds out of pretty antiquated looking ATMs. There was a splendid collection of pre-Celtic Tiger polyester-wear on view also.
Haven’t posted in a long while; work is busy, and have been a little below par health-wise. Sorry to hear SBS is having a tough time: good luck and God bless to him.
272 - What I really can’t understand about Ireland is why new-build estates are so god-damn UGLY. Every house looks identical and it makes beautiful towns look like they’ve had a hideous wart attached to them.
268. “Americans expect results and they expect them quickly. If results are not forthcoming, they look for somebody to blame. If there is only one party to blame, they will soon reap the whirlwind. This is the story of American politics.”
In spite of my US citizenship I don’t know a huge amount about American politics, but a glance at the history of the majorities in Congress appears to paint a somewhat different picture, at least superficially. For instance, I believe there has only been two shifts of party control of the House of Representatives in the last half-century - in 1994 and 2006. That actually suggests a good deal of inertia (and the advantage of incumbency) in the US political system.
107.”99. I’ve never minded Gabble quite honestly.”
Neither have I, just wish he would pace himself a bit better, it sometimes feels like he is spinning into orbit.
212.”Brown to set up economic Cobra-style body to respond to crisis.”
More dithering, god if he could just make a decision within a reasonable time frame instead of looking for ways to avoid making decisions for as long as possible. I can see now, Gordon Brown is calling an emergency meeting = tough PM doing sweet FA while trying to spin that he is.
275.So what have we got now, the BoE, Treasury, FSA and now this. And not the weight, wit or where with all to take a decision between them!
GIN - 270 - Isn’t right now exactly the time for Brown to embrace the Euro, just as it is about to collapse?
121. I don’t think the suicide joke will really have distressed many, but Pickles’ jibe that he was pleased to have made someone more ill was quite nasty - even as a joke - and he was right to apologise.
? What did Pickles say??
225.”213. Yes. I think this association with Maggie might be electorally quite shrewd and as you say well timed. Bit risky too.2
I think that Cameron has tapped into the mood change regarding Maggie Thatcher over the last couple of years, and in particular how well references to her chime with the voters during these tough economic times.
273. First, you are dead right: the new building here on the outskirts of any town you care to mention is uglier than anything you can manage in the UK, or anywhere else come to think of it. It and will surely look pretty tatty in twenty years time.
Why so? First, we had a property goldrush here; demography (returning immigrants, a bulge of people in their twenties and thirties, EU accession) was the first driver. The government was coining money from all sources of revenue: stamp duty, VAT on building materials, income tax from workers, and corporation taxes from the developers. Also, we have a splendid tradition in Ireland of close relationships between property developers and local (even national) politicians: so questions that might be asked about zoning are not. So one doesn’t always get the nicest of amenities in the vicinity of the estates. There is a great bit of idiom that covers this Irish practice: “the brown envelope”, which contains coloured paper of the folding variety.
In other words: a bonanza. Strong demand, no checks, banks happy to lend and ride the wave, government delighted to find a lucrative revenue stream - and everything therefore done quickly. So you get identikit, ugly estates.
256 - This might harm the SNP’s chances in the by-election as well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7646859.stm
279. “I think that Cameron has tapped into the mood change regarding Maggie Thatcher over the last couple of years, and in particular how well references to her chime with the voters during these tough economic times.”
But not if the BBC’s focus group is to be believed.
USA politics would be much more fun if they had loads of parties - both nationally and state-based - a bit like India. They could change the rules to make the Electoral College come together to vote for the president, and have lots of exhaustive ballots (and horse-trading) to make sure they get a majority. (It would be a bit like the College of Cardinals electing a Pope).
Even just having a third viable substantial national party would be fun. If the USA Lib Dems (or whatever they were called) came second in a handful of states, split the vote, or even won a state or two occasionally then it would be good.
250.That front page and the headline “He’s ready” from the Sun is going to make them very happy in CCHQ. Wonder what the Mail will do?
281. Well, the proposal has been out there for some time, so if there was any damage most of it will already have been done. If the ban would have been so unpopular, in a perverse way the defeat might be a blessing in disguise.
284 -
Daily Mail front page “A kiss for PM in waiting”
Camo snugs wife in public!
280 - It is terrible. Ireland is a wonderful country but I’m only moving there when I can build a lovely new house by the side of the N4.
The sad thing is that it doesn’t cost THAT much more to make housing estates with a few different house models to make it all look less uniform. I was very surprised this summer that (apart from the hangovers and hospitality) one of the abiding memories was these awful new estates.
Not put me off the country, not by any means, but these estates are something that will be regretted in the future.
283. I think there’s a moderately successful third party in Vermont called the Progressive Party - they hold a few seats in the state legislature, but don’t bother with federal elections.
So, in balance of overall press reaction in contrast to the BBC’s today … are we pretty much agreed that they have been exposed to be pro-Labour / anti-Tory?
I don’t think there is any doubt what so ever. It kicked in during the Labour conference and hasn’t stopped since.
284 & 286. The Daily Mail seems to have swung behind Cameron
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1066322/MAX-HASTINGS-A-year-ago-I-thought-doomed-But-yesterday-David-Cameron-showed-hes-PM-waiting.html
(sorry for the long link)
287. Those estates are a shock, even for a local. When I go to a part of the country I haven’t been to for 10 years (say), I wonder “what the hell has happened here?”. The feeling in Dublin is a bit less acute; the ugliness has developed bit by bit, and you don’t notice it too quickly. But then you see a bit of footage on TV or old cine film (my Dad is a cine buff) of Dublin from a number of years ago, and wish all the money had been better spent.
If I remember, you had a bit of a trip “up North” earlier on this summer. Hope you got the communication and newspaper politics right!
289.”So, in balance of overall press reaction in contrast to the BBC’s today … are we pretty much agreed that they have been exposed to be pro-Labour / anti-Tory?”
On the evidence of the last 24 hours yes, but it won’t be the first time. I despair of their reporting sometimes on a raft of issues, not just political coverage.
I also think that the media reaction to Cameron and the Conservatives has been mixed with some deciding before the Conference even opened what their narrative was going to be. And that is always a mistake with Cameron and Osborne, they think 2/3 steps ahead of those journalists as this week has proved again.
Every time they raise the bar, he jumps that bit higher with comfort.
I also think that the much media hyped charge by Brown about novices did not resonate with voters tired and and fed up with Brown and Labour, and looking for a change. It reminded me of all the excitement when they misinterpreted Blair’s description of Brown as a clunking fist. The political lobby got very excited and it took them a few days to realise that it had not gone down well with the public, and although Blair had shrewdly called it right, the nickname stuck for all the wrong reasons.
285 - I was thinking in terms of it being an issue to beat the SNP with in the by-election campaign.
Benedict Brogan on A man with a Thatcherite plan
“HE’S the “man with a plan” who had a lot to say about himself, but not much to tell us about what he intends to do. Yet David Cameron’s speech marked a striking change of tone for the Tory leader. He has cast aside his soft, green image in favour of a steely, Thatcherite blue. His hour long speech was marked by a palpable anger at the miseries of the NHS, the craziness of the welfare system, the neglect of our troops, and the arrogance of a state infected by a health and safety, human rights culture. Mr Cameron showed his party unexpected flashes of the ruthlessness behind the charm.
But his chief objective was to answer Gordon Brown’s charge that he is a “novice” unfit for the responsibility of the top job, and to establish himself as a leader in waiting with the character needed to show discipline, judgement and decisiveness under pressure. His reference “Gentleman” Jim Callaghan was well played and killed the novice thing with one deft stroke. His focus on those qualities of leadership was a direct dig at the Prime Minister, and an attempt to counter claims that the public is ready to overlook his mishandling of the economy and give Mr Brown a second chance.
Mr Cameron has concluded that economic uncertainty has given the voters an appetite for a harder message of tough choices and traditional Tory values. He has never disguised his Conservative instincts. He is the heir to Thatcher, not Blair. And those around him, specifically Steve Hilton, are intent on keeping him on the Conservative true path. That declaration of war on the educational establishment, and his attack on the yellow tabard looniness of ‘elf and safetyism, were in deadly earnest. It’s not quite Jekyll and Hyde, but this is a new, fierce David Cameron, and he means business.”
His change of tone towards Cameron has been very marked since the start of the Conservative Conference this week.
289. “what so ever”
I’d be very careful if I were you. Judging by his speech today, a Cameron government will have the Spelling Police down on you like a tonne of bricks (or is that ‘ton’?). I also spotted a few shocking instances of ‘definately’ earlier today - but I’m sure none of the culprits attended school under Conservative rule.
293.This policy was a non starter, it was meant to be a cheap headline grabber. No, think prisons at full capacity.
293. Sure, I was just making the point that we’ve known about this for a few months (including during the period of the Glasgow East by-election). And in any case it’s a double-edged sword - a ban is presumably unpopular with the young, but I suspect would be very popular with many older people, who of course are more likely to turn out to vote. Labour will also have to explain to that demographic why, after hedging their bets for a while, they’re now taking the ‘libertarian’ rather than the ‘tough on anti-social behaviour’ option.
296. The last remark was pretty cheap. I’d have to check, but I don’t think prison was ever going to be the standard penalty for breaching the ban.
If that was directed at me, then you have not done your homework this week. The comment about prisons has nothing to do with the raising of the drinking age, but the fact that are prisons are full and the current administration might be forced to follow on from the Labour government by introducing an early release scheme.
300. Chris, I have to ask - are there ANY policies the SNP have that you do not regard as cheap/irresponsible/dangerous stunts/headline-grabbers? I mean, is it OK with you if they actually have the odd policy?
And forgive me, but the reason I innocently thought your comment was about the drinking age was that you started it with the words ‘this policy’, and were responding to comment 293 by old codger which as far I could see was related to the drinking policy and nothing else. I may be missing something there but I can’t see what.
301.”The last remark was pretty cheap.”
“I have to ask - are there ANY policies the SNP have that you do not regard as cheap/irresponsible/dangerous stunts/headline-grabbers?”
Are you going to be able to cope with the SNP being in power for 4 years? I ask, because you cannot seem to deal with any robust criticism without resorting to insulting other posters. You immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion because you were looking for a spat.
Sorry, but this is juvenile stuff and I am off to bed.
302. I really, really should bite my tongue at this point, but I’m going to indulge myself by getting the annoyance off my chest one last time and then I’m going to permanently call it a day on this board. I don’t know if I’ve come across as someone who relishes an argument, but I’m not, I hate it. I’m literally sitting here with a beloved pet cat on my lap who’s dying on me, and I can’t believe the amount of time I’ve wasted in the last two days having a pointless slanging-match with someone I’ve never met and never will meet. I didn’t come here to do anything but give my own observations and debate in constructive fashion, but I like others before me seem to have got caught up in the site’s ‘house-style’ of low-level pettiness. If someone is being petty towards me, I’ve started to respond in kind.
So my final, very petty, parting-shot is this - I note that in the last two days ChrisD has repeatedly made references to me as if I were behaving as a child, ie. the ‘juvenile’ remark above, but also ‘grow up’, ‘I hope I am more adult than that’, etc. Well, I think the only fair and objective response to that last query would have to be ‘no’ - if one of us is being less than adult then so is the other, because we have actually been behaving in very similar ways, and indeed find ourselves in remarkably similar positions on this board. I am an SNP supporter and generally make supportive remarks towards that party while often criticising their opponents, because those are my honestly-held personal political views. Chris is a Tory supporter and, as a glance through today’s threads will swiftly confirm, generally makes supportive remarks about that party and frequently criticises their opponents (especially Labour and SNP). And yet in spite of this uncanny similarity between us Chris still manages to portray me as some kind of party drone, and herself as an entirely free spirit who speaks her mind without fear or favour. Part of me thinks she genuinely believes that to be a fair comparison. In the immortal words of Frank Luntz, that’s…incredible.
All in all, it occurs to me that debating with ChrisD is remarkably similar to having a playground argument with someone who sticks her tongue out at you and chants ‘you’re thick, you’re ugly, you’re pathetic, my Dad’s better than your Dad, na na na na’. So you - probably very foolishly - respond in kind, but then her look changes and she quietly says ‘that’s quite immature actually. When are you going to grow up?’ If you’re not used to this arguing tactic, you can be left feeling quite chastened until you realise later how absurd it all was.
So that’s that, I’ve said my piece. This site is an excellent resource for political junkies like me so I’ll continue to be a regular visitor, but I’ll confine myself to lurking from now on. Best wishes to one and all.
Interesting set of papers covering aspects of the McCain-Obama eligibility lawsuits (some of which I’ve posted before)
http://www.americasright.com/2008/10/berg-v-obama-update-wednesday-october-2.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/mccain-palin-joint-interv_n_130412.html
Check this out - CBS, Katie Couric and the ‘Mother and Daughter’ show - difficult to see how Tina Fey can satirise something which is already this hilarious and embarrassing !