Who does Gordon think he is - Michael Howard?
February 28th, 2007
Will the “Britishness” thing help or hinder Brown’s leadership bid?
Watching Gordon Brown launch the latest stage of his of his Britishness agenda on the bulletins last night I could not help but thinking that he is making precisely the same mistakes that Michael Howard made in the run up to the 2005 General Election.
Then it will be recalled that the Tory leader stepped up the rhetoric and dog whistles against groups like immigrants and travellers in an effort to shore up his right flank. At least Howard had some obvious voter targets in mind when he moved onto this territory.
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But what groups of voters is Labour’s would-be leader trying to win over by calling for things like immigrants being forced to carry out community service before being granted British citizenship?
For surely Brown has worked out that the battle-ground at the next general election will be the centre-ground where appearing to be “beastly” to immigrants is likely to turn off voters rather than win support.
For I have observed before here that there are two big groups in the electorate that Labour needs to appeal to if it wants to hold onto power - those Tories who moved over to Blair in 1997 and the Labour supporters who switched to the Lib Dems in 2005.
Whatever you might think of Cameron the new Tory leadership has figured that out and it doesn’t take too much of a reading of the polls to work out that it is amongst these groups that the party is making the most electoral progress. For Brown now to be talking tough on immigrants seems designed to help the Tories to take the centre ground. It is just plain dumb.
And Gordon has not sewn up the Labour leadership completely yet. According to the Guardian this morning “Detailed assessments have been made suggesting between 60 and 90 MPs are committed to Mr Brown, and as many as 60 are opposed to him. This leaves about 200 in the centre willing to look at another candidate if the polls continue to suggest Mr Brown cannot defeat Mr Cameron.“
Each day the Brown price in the betting markets seems to ease out a little further. It’s now at 0.28/1. So in just nine days the return on a winning £100 Brown bet has moved from £19 to £28.
Unless there’s a significant turnaround in Labour’s position in the polls during March you can see a panic starting to set in and the notion of finding a leader other than Gordon might just get some traction. Labour feels it owes Brown the leadership - but not at any electoral cost.
Mike Smithson
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If those numbers are correct and Brown really only has the definite support of 60 to 90 MPs he is surely in very big trouble.
Looking more and more like a carbon copy of the situation at the equivalent stage with David Davis.
Mike, excellent analysis. I have noticed a panic/questioning of the present strategy setting in among Labour posters over the last few days.
I hope they realise that an attempt to debate the issues within the party will not be enough to energise or renew the party if it is just a phoney contest to help Labour/Brown get a honeymoon bounce. That alone will not give a leadership contest the X factor we saw with the conservatives, just ask the libdems who must regret the fact that some of the younger contenders did not have the courage to enter the race!
Brown is making the same mistakes that Howard did in the 2005 GE campaign, dog whistle issues which appeal to the core vote only in this case it sounds like the BNP are bigger threat to Labour than UKIP. When you are forced to shore up your core vote rather than appealing to the wider electorate then you are in trouble and worried that they won’t come out and vote on election day.
Gordon Brown was terribly unconvincing when asked how people are better off under New Labour yesterday while sitting with a group of ‘ordinary’ people. All he could do was mumble about people having more foreign holidays and more consumer goods.
3.Matt, I noticed that Sky went big on the latest poll and focussed on David Cameron in a very positive way. They then switched to a less than attractive profile of Brown where we saw him glancing at his watch while giving a speech!
The Gordon Brown ‘Britishness’ stuff is an attempt to counter his Scottishness. It won’t work. Nobody in the pubs is remotely interested in such a concept as ‘Britishness’.
Alistair Campbell was spot on with his analysis that Brown is ‘psychologically flawed’. His attempts to override the public perception of a brooding, dour, obsessive just aren’t working. ‘Friends’ claim that in ‘private’, he is witty, humorous and kind. The reality is that he can’t be bothered to give his opposite number the time of day and casts into outer darkness any colleague who crosses him.
No wonder the Conservatives are counting the days until Brown takes over and many Labour MPs are casting nervously around for any candidate who might have the remotest chance of providing some sort of alternative.
I’ve been following this site for a long time but this is my first post. Being posted in New York limits my ability to post during ‘live’ hours – and limits my ability to bet legally too! I hope to chip in on the US elections from time to time.
Anyway, it is hilarious and outrageous to see Brown playing the race card. Hilarious because it is so transparent. Outrageous because it is so hypocritical. New Labour’s immigration policies have caused race relations to worsen to their lowest levels since, er, the last time we had a Labour government. So rather than beat up on immigrants perhaps Mr. Brown could explain what he was doing while his party enacted ill thought out policies (e.g. abolishing the primary purpose rule) that made good lefty sound-bites but which have proven to be utterly counter-productive in practice.
I’ve never heard anyone who isn’t a politician remark one way or the other on Gordon Brown’s Scottishness.
There may be a more important test for the Chancellor though if the stock market falls around the world are sustained and spread here.
What astonishes me about Labour politicians let alone leading ones making remarks like this is how things seem to have changed. I suppose that all through the Tory years there might have been some whispers in their policy groups along these lines but they never made a public statement along these lines. Applications for British citizenship were left very much as they were and imagine the response from Labour then if any Tory had suggested that some people might get a British passport just because it was more convenient.
4. While Murdoch feels he owes Brown he will back the winner. Right now that looks like DC.
4,9 — unconnected with the OFT probe into Sky buying a chunk of ITV?
6. Absolutely. The abolition of primary purpose was one of the main reasons immigration TRIPLED within a few months of Labour attaining power. It was a sop to the ethnic vote, and the PC vote, and the race relations industry, and - at best - it wasn’t thought through. Contrary to perceptions, a majority of the vast influx of migration this country has witnessed in the last ten years has been from Muslim/New Commonwealth countries, not the new EU.
And its Muslim immigrants who seem most unhappy and uncomfortable here, to put it mildly.
For Labour to suddenly stand up and start waffling about cohesion, Britishness, identity and the rest, when they have spent the last fifty years as a political movement trying to hollow out all vestiges of Britishness, any sense of national pride, to the extent that they have MPs who avowedly dislike Britain, patriotism and white people, really takes some swallowing.
It doesn’t wash. It won’t do. Pull the other one.
I increasingy believe Labour are gonna be delivered a big mailsack of whup-ass come the next election - they are gonna lose badly. People simply don’t believe them anymore.
Good.
At least he didn’t start going on about how great the England team were, and how he loves Paul Gasgoigne.
Gordon Brown is flogging a dead horse. Contrary to what he said in his speech Britishness is actually on the wane as a primary identity. People are asserting their English, Scottish and Welsh identities - which is his big problem since he has no mandate for those constituencies.
A surly Scottish PM for England will be what finally does it for Britishness in England. The English aren’t blind, they agree with Frederick Forsyth’s opinion of Brown:
He plays the British patriotic card but privately loathes England, the English, the crown and middle class.
11. Absolutely Sean. Then again who would have believed that the Tories could have a leader who went on about the ‘environment’, ’social justice’, ‘being nice to teenagers who smoke dope at school’ and ‘macchiatos’.
Personally, I am of the opinion that it is Blair’s refusal to go that is having the biggest effect on Labour’s position - he has his legacy of two bogged down wars and 3/4 million deaths to retire with, what more does he want - and that Brown has got stuck in nomansland, heir elect and therefore open to criticism, yet unable to do anything real except play with his calculator.
Can’t remember the last time Brown had any good news or positive coverage… have the wheels started to come off?
Perhaps Mike is right - continuing bad polls may well stop what appeared to be unstoppable. Problem is that I still don’t see a credible challenger waiting in the wings. And anyway, as a Tory I want to see Brown take over - it leads to a number of scenarios where we win and Labour end in conflict.
I guess that given that playing the British card is failing, his final budget in March will be critical. If he underplays it again and bores us all to death, then the PLP may add that to the awful polling numbers and come to their own conclusions.
13 Paul Lloyd. “Personally, I am of the opinion that it is Blair’s refusal to go that is having the biggest effect on Labour’s position”
But all the recent polling evidence is that Brown will do even worse than Blair. I don’t just buy the line that we don’t know what Brown will be like and that we will suddenly see all these admirable (and fluffy) qualities he currently only shows in private.
He’s been co-pilot for 15 years and we all know what to expect when he takes over. That’s why the polling numbers go down when he is mentioned - the public already know the deal and don’t like it.
12 - I disagree. I think most people are pragmatic enough not to care whether the PM is a Serbo-Croat immigrant, or whatever, as long as they get the job done. Whenever Brown opens his mouth on Britishness he looks as though he is speaking to a focus group - not getting the job done. He must have some truly dumb, or cowardly, advisers, for this to continue.
His Scottishness just becomes a suitable peg to hang grievances on for people who have already decided they don’t like him - due to policy, perceived lack of balls, etc.
Tory posters out in force this morning. Let me put the alternative view - and I’m speaking as someone who supports the Clarke initiative (I think Mike has missed a trick here - that is going to be far more significant than the story he’s focused on), favours a contest, and is more pro-refugee than my party. The idea of early involvement in British working life is by no means horrific to most people who want to settle here; on the contrary, the proposal that refugees should be allowed to do at least voluntary work, and ideally allowed to do paid work instead of getting benefits, is a long-standing one from pro-refugee groups. The wife who sits at home speaking no English and having no contact with the rest of the country is not a model which most people like, whatever their ethnic background. The proposal of voluntary work doesn’t apply to people who already have jobs, to respond to a point that SBS made.
Gordon remains by a huge margin the most likely leader: he is highly competent, respected in ways that Cameron is weak, and, contrary to what Tories think, widely liked in the Labour movement. We are not going to be bounced out of choosing him by the press. But we’ve noted the benefits of a proper debate for the Tlories. The fact is that being a Labour Party member at the moment is more interesting than it’s been for a while, and we are about to have a period where we dominate the media. It won’t all be positive, as the media are what they are, but it’s going to be useful just the same.
It’s all quite depressing for a Labour supporter. The temptation to believe that Gordon will be the person you want him to be is powerful. This latest initiative has Blair at his worst written all over it. Will it be popular? Possibly with Essex taxi drivers but if Labour supporters had wanted to belong to a party like that we would have voted for Howard.
My hope is that some senior advertising figures will get together and tell him to start playing to his strengths not to his weaknesses. I am still confident that the voters will ultimately reject the Tories and policy announcements like tax breaks for married couples encourages me a lot. A few more targets like that for Labour to aim at and the voters will realize that Tories are incapable of really changing or indeed being progressive in any way
Good post NIck. Gooness, reading some of the above, I thought Labour were down to 10% in the polls, GB was already PM and there were riots in the streets begging for Cameron to take over!
I think people should take a deep breath and just wait for the handover. I personally would like to see a contest. Gordon would beat anyone against him. I can’t wait to get my ballot papers! Trouble is, I am undecided for Deputy. I like Hilary Benn, but will he get the 44 noms? No one has heard of Cruddas, despite all the puff he gets here. Hain? Who knows!
Roger - chin up mate! Something contained within a speech is just an outrider and may not become policy at all. And anyway, I hardly think he meant sweeping the streets.
17. ‘We are not going to be bounced out of choosing him by the press.’
Sounding a bit paranoid there - you’re on the run Mr.Palmer.
I feel like Michael Winner in the Esure ad “Mike - calm down”. All this Gordon Brown stuff, day after day after day. It applies to some of the rest of you too.
I’m sure he’s a pain as a person and irritates many but he is a politician to his fingertips (in a way John Major was not). The focus on Britishness is smart move
Its a “big issue” which does not cut across anything Tony Blair says
It’s about values rather than policies, so much more impactfull on the public.Policies are dull
It speaks to newcomers in the country for whom “english” is a turn off
It gives people concerned about immigration and related issues a voice that means they don’t sound to themselves like the BNP.
It may not attract new support to him, but does speak to the disaffected core vote. This blog is regularly commenting about how soft the Labour vote is.
It’s important for holding up the Nationalists on the home ground (in a small way)
On its own not enough but a smart tactical move
“to the extent that they have MPs who avowedly dislike Britain, patriotism and white people, really takes some swallowing”
This is the stuff you read on the BNP website. And SeanT is right that these values are ones that Labour have been rejecting for years and still do. It’s the presence of people like him that convinces me that the voters will reject the Tories for a fourth time. However many hoodies Dave hugs or green trees he plants it’s the Sean T’s that are the real heart of the Tory Party.
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18 - the problem Labour supporter seem to have with Cameron is that they’ve forgotten how far they had to go in compromising on their core views to get into Government, and are starting to believe that their core views coincide with the views of the electorate.
Cameron is a particular problem for them simply because he seems to fit all the old Tory stereotypes, which in turn prompts them to try and attack him with all the stereotypical Labour views.
To really know and understand the views of the British public is an incredible difficult thing (not least because they are often contradictory and not easily analysed by political logic) - there was a reason why the Labour leadership in the late 90s and early 00s put so much store by daily focus groups and detailed opinion polling. At the moment many Labour supporters seem to have abandoned all that and are reverting to attacking Cameron on ‘instinct’. Only they can’t work out why it doesn’t work. The answer is in the first paragraph of this post.
Nick 17. Where is the polling evidence to support your assertions? One finding from last week’s YouGov poll that has not been published was to this question “If Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister, do you think he will, or will not, prove a good Prime Minister?”
Only 62% - less than one in three - of declared Labour voters said yes.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL070101004_2.pdf
23 - I really find it very difficult to believe that SeanT is the sort of person you find at the heart of the Tory Party…
& Nick 17. Which of the three groups mentioned by the Guardian are you in? The 60-90 solid Brown supporters; the 60 antis or the 200 in the middle?
26 - Yes, he’s far too moderate and restrained for most of us
I actually welcome Clarke’s intervention - unless he starts ranting and raving again
Got a couple more new members in our meeting yesterday - quite encouraging really (unless they are Tory plants!) seeing as we are in the ‘trough’ at the moment.
Re 11 - The increase in immigration goes hand in hand with increased support for the BNP. Before Labour came to power they were a joke now all three main parties are taking them seriously.
Hallo JohnO! Why can’t all Tory supporters on this site have your lightness of touch? I might then become one myself!
Nick P. You make the proposal sound very reasonable. Of course learning English is a good thing to do if you are going to make this country your home but making it compulsory with a test at the end? And what happens if they fail? Then there is the voluntary work. Should this apply to everyone? It sounds too American for my taste and I fear that within a short time we’ll be holding our hands over our hearts and shouting God bless the Queen every time we enter or leave a room.
Did anyone get a good night’s sleep last night? You’d not think so to read most of these posts. If the Tories were as confident as they claim to be, they’d hardly care whether Labour go into the next election led by Brown or anyone else.
Three non-partisan points: our falling birthrate, and the entirely understandable preference of employers for young, rather than old, workers, means that we have to have immigration from somewhere.
White people usually identify themselves as English, Welsh or Scots. Non-whites, at least in England, tend to identify themselves as British. There are perfectly understandable historical reasons for this.
Politicians know, uncomfortably, that there are two electoral battlegrounds, roughly corresponding to the level of education: in one, the traditional “centre ground”, all three main parties have some attraction, but not much, whilst the BNP is repulsive; in the other, what might be called the “cash in hand” voter, it is at least as attractive as anyone else. What it lacks is a media patron, in the way that Rothermere (briefly) backed Mosley in the 1930s.
I think Brown’s Britishness campaign, flags in your garden and all that is patronising and really stupid. It is logical in America to talk of afro-americans,hispano-americans, native americans etc because they are an entirely hybrid population formed from settlers from all over the world during a short period of history, during which they ethnically cleansed out most of the natives.
But we have long established indigenous populations who like to think of themselves as English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish; to try to bind in all our historically recent immigrants by inventing a word, “Britishness” and trying to sell it under the label of “shared values” is as offensive I would guess, to the immigrant population as to the indigenous.
“Shared values” is meaningless, which is probably why Tony Blair now uses it to replace his disproved “weapons of mass destruction” as his excuse for invading Iraq.
Beth
31
Nice one. My branch chairwoman would be astonished (and delighted) were I able to recruit THE Roger to our noble cause 
I agree Nick (17) a period in the public eye would be helpful to the Labour party.
But without a rival candidate, almost however unlikely, how can a meaningful debate take place. If Clarke or Milburn say X or Y and seem to get some support from MPs does Gordon say OK then I do that when I am PM? If Gordon is given a free run then why should he allow himself to be bound by the Lilluptions who are the current crop of Labour MP’s.
In the great debate I think I am bigender - but …..
24. Excellent post.
Good article Mike, and in some ways you may be right. However it may sure up Labours vote against the BNP in the locals. On the other hand it probably won’t.
Howards big mistake was not his position on immigration, I think it is increasingly becomming common ground, it is the tone of the discussion (in part led by Labour at the time) and the amount of time spent talking about it (in part led by the media).
Having set out his stal Howard should have moved on, and if asked, just said we have set out our position we, are here to talk about Y. (Which he tried to an extent)
That said this tactic of Brown’s just seems to alienate a lot of Labour Guardian readers, and I can’t see him winning an election with out a lot of them.
“Good post Nick. Goodness, reading some of the above, I thought Labour were down to 10% in the polls,……” Redflump (19)
Well, they are down to about 15% of the voters (30% on a 50% turnout) I don’t think that any party has appreciated how unattractive the current crop of politicians are.
Re 26, Timothy, Brown clearly has Balls, Ed Balls
The same Guardian article Mike quotes suggests up to 10 ministers may support Milliband.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,2023099,00.html
Re 32, Innocent, we have to ask ourselves why we have a falling birthrate. What is more other European countries are doing something about it.
Nick P
You mention a website covering the ‘debate’ and the possibility of registering for it. Do you have any further details? I see no mention of it elsewhere.
32. IA - the idea that immigrants can ’solve’ the problem of a falling birthrate is a fallacy. They get old too. Run a statistical model for a few decades and you will find that immigration has to reach ludicrous heights to stabilise the so-called dependency ratio.
The idea that ‘panic’ is setting in amongst Labour supporters/posters is absurd, with three years to go,(possibly) who can tell the outcome of the next GE. Which ever party you support, you have to accept a simple fact, your gonna lose sometime. With three wins under its belt, Labour are beginning to stretch the elastic of democracy, can it win a fourth yes, will it who knows. If Labour lose, most supporters should shrug their shoulders and be accepting. The next GE is the one the Tories must win, they have now been out of power for longer than at any time in the last 200 years. If they lose, where do they go, they’ve tried right, right, right about more, whoops that didn’t work lets try left, left left a bit more, if this doesnt work, where to next??? One other thing, if Labour lose, think of the fun Labour posters will have , when Cameron’s government will start having its c**k ups, you’ve got a lot to look forward to.
[41] Which ones? What are they doing? Is it working?
[43] I daresay; but that doesn’t address the second half of my point (employer preference).
Nick Palmer Your post really does not reflect what Brown said.
You said, ” The idea of early involvement in British working life is by no means horrific to most people who want to settle here; on the contrary, the proposal that refugees should be allowed to do at least voluntary work, and ideally allowed to do paid work instead of getting benefits, is a long-standing one from pro-refugee groups.”
The Treasury, it appears, rejected that option some time ago on the grounds of cost and Brown said, according to the BBC, “Being a British citizen is about more than a test, more than a ceremony. It’s a kind of contract between the citizen and the country involving rights but also involving responsibilities that will protect and enhance the British way of life.
“It’s also right to consider asking men and women seeking citizenship to undertake community work in our country, or something akin to that, that introduces them to a wider range of institutions and people.”
The BBC report goes on to say,
Habib Rahman, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said: “Compulsory community service is usually imposed as a non-custodial penalty for a criminal offence.
“We are therefore extremely concerned that it is now being proposed as a condition of citizenship.”
46. If we are going to get wacky ideas like this even before the May elections, what is Brown going to come up with afterwards, when Labour has performed disastrously and the BNP has done well. Repatriation, perhaps?
17 Nick P
Kremlin - watchers would spot a slight weakening in your confidence that GB will be the next leader
46 - Witan, that’s bexcause Nick, as with most Labour MPs is having to try and accept geting a leader they know is a busted flush. His good days are behind him and his sub A level economics are coming home to roost. Coldstone is right, If I were a Labour supporter I would hope for a wafer thin tory majority at the next election and renew the party in opposition. Bonkers Brown the Goblin King is not going to provide them with a solution to their problem and neither is Millibland. I would stick with TB, head and shoulders above every other political operator in Britain and certainly the only person with a hope of retaining a majority for Labour at the next election.
For this reason I will be voting Hain and Brown.
Surely the Clarke-Milburn debate is not about policy it’s about who is the leader ?
They’ve managed to start that already - they must be pleased
Kingbongo - glad to see you are so confident. Hope it doesn’t blow up in your face!
50 Exactly, Jamie.
Re 45 Innocent I think both France and Germany are trying it, vertainly Germany, and it seems with some initial success in Germany. That said you would have to look at it long term.
There are many reasons for a drop in the birth rate, but some are an attitude that some people have against large families, the cost of housing to put families in, and a growing attitude against marriage.
Governmnet can’t regulate to fix these problems but it can help, and not only that but also generate a more positive attitude to family.
Part of the problem is also the way our divorce courts penalise men. In most European countries Heather Mills would walk away with a few million at most. We certainly would not be talking about circa £200 to £400 million.
If, however unlikely, Gordon Brown does not become, or ceases to be, prime minister at least partly because he is Scottish, this will be the final boost that the SNP require to achieve independence-a suitable ironic outcome.
I note that the SNP are reported in a poll in the Scotsman today as still on course to become the largest party in Holyrood on 3 May.
First Night Review
Dobbin - A Dark Tale of Naked Horse And Horsham Flesh.
There is little doubt that the thought of a naked Nicholas Soames on the London stage has taken the theatre world of the West End, let alone rear end, by storm.
The never svelt Soames, sometime Sussex Tory MP, bestrides the footlights like a latter day grease paint mammoth, taking to the role of deranged jockey with consumate ease and gravitas. The former Wizard of Hogwash, whose wand is certainly kept in hand, gives a bravura performance despite the collapse of the shire horse on mounting by Soames.
Small technical hitches by the wardrobe mistress are never key and I’m sure that this Conservative tour de force will be galloping to a theatre near you soon !!!!!!!!
Btw - last price matched on GB for leader was 1.35 (lay), 1.31 to back - amazing prices compared with 2 weeks ago.
“Who does Gordon think he is ”
There’s something of the ‘trite’ about him.
54. Largest party in Scotland prices have switched favourite Lab 1.94, SNP 1.67.
I got some SNP at 1.9 last night but not a lot..
57. Who let Mrs Widdecombe out of the attic?
Nearly March people. Elections on 3rd May - 60 days to go. I am expecting a ‘bad’ night, but I think Labout will hang on as leaders of a coalition in both Wales and Scotland. Labour will also loose many council seats I shouldn’t wonder.
Talking about locals, what are the by-elections for this week?
61. RedFlump, just a LD/Con battle in Brentwood
62. Andrea, do you know which ward?
As i have said before GB is focusing on the wrong thing! This Britishness thing has no votes in it for English seats. It just reminds English voters that Gordon represents a scottish seat, has a Scottish accident and does not “represent them”. Everytime he comes on the telly he remind’s people of why they do not feel enthralled by him due to his quentessentially scottishness. He has a cold public persona and whilst some might argue he is comptent. Others could argue he is not.
The rape of pension funds by GB, the sale of Gold to buy euro’s, the persistant trade deficiet, the structural defeciet on public borrowing,(Borrowing money through expansion not good - I did this and am knackered now i am out of work- Credit crunch! Imposition of tuition fees, where as scottish children who he represents don’t have them. The use of PFI - where not economical, the list could go on. I would say the economy has grown despite Gordon Brown, not because of him!!!
I would also say this economic achievement does not seem to have reached many of the people i know!
The price on Milliband for nxt Chancellor on Betfair has fallen from >20 to 8-10 over last 24 hours…
Granita II…?
63. Ian Jones, Pilgrims Hatch
The tories keep on going on about the so-called ‘raid’ on pension funds. As if £5bn taken out of them is equal to the £200bm lost through the dot-com crash in 2001. THAT is the real reason pensions are in trouble - together with greedy companies taking payment holidays and not keeping up their contributions.
The real scandal with pensions is when Thatch broke the link with earnings in the early 80’s. Labour have pledged to renew the link.
66. Thanks Andrea
PtP (42) I thought Nick said that the Clarke/Milburn web site was confidential (why?) and anyway it didnt work properly because it he couldnt register on it.
Not an impressive start!
69. http://www.stopgordoatanycost.org ?
Blair really has to stand down soon or this site’ll explode. I read that he was waiting for Yates to report before going. Talk about a get out clause! I was reminded of a model friend of mine who told me her married lover was going to leave his wife as soon as his children were Barmitzva’d “Whatever that means”. So I asked her how old his children were and she said two and four!
67. No the raid on “pensions” is actually the “Tax Credit” thing. What happens is when you sell shares you used to get the 10% back. This applies to corporate pension funds as well as inidividuals. It therefore stiffiles the growth of said pension funds. Now every transaction gets taxed on it. It is not just £5 billion but cumlative. It is not a one off - it goes up and up and up. It is funny, when i left university they use to say that we had one of the best provisions for old age in the world. We have now slipped all the way back down the rankings. Why do you think that companies are not doing the final salary scheme anymore! It ain’t viable and part of this lands at GB’s door.
Labour folk go on about the “tories” but what you have done is even worse. Notice we don’t here much about manufacturing these days?
69. The chances of keeping a website that is aimed at MPs confidential is unlikely, so why do they bother? The event was arranged a two days’ notice - why the hurry? It seems bizarre that they want a ‘full participative debate’ - but confined to Labour MPs! It’s either halfbaked or very fishy. If there was a full debate across the whole party, it would result in rejecting the politics of Milburn and the ultra-blairites who through their actions have left our party politically and financially bankrupt.
71. I’ve still got my money on 2008+
Re 71 Roger,
Would be really funny if he wasn’t Jewish as well!
71
51 - very kind Redflump, my predictive abilities make roger look like a sage of political foresight; for the good of the Labour Party a minority tory government looks the best bet and I think that is, at the moment the most likely outcome.
67 - the raid on pension funds adds up to well over 100bn of real money. the dotcom crash didn’t cost anyone a penny unless they crystallised their losses. If people kept their shares and enjoyed the dividend income then they lost nothing. Agree with you over the pension ‘holidays’though - they should have realised the government would steal a big chunk of income and then force them to sell equities and buy highly overvalued bonds.
Miliband cut to 6s and Clarke down to 14s with bluesq.com for next leader. They seem the most jumpy of bookmakers, but it confirms where the money is going. My view is that price on Clarke is wretched value. I think Miliband is overpriced too - I wouldn’t make him that even if he confirmed he was standing.
New thread on the Brown betting price.
72. Actually, Toyota are investing £100m in new plant in Deeside, safeguarding 100s of jobs with their new hybrid engine production. So not all doom and gloom.
23. Who are you to say what is the real ‘heart’ of the Conservative party? Surely views that there is a conspiracy against white people is more the heart of the BNP, like you say? I consider myself a through and through Conservative and I find such views abhorrent - as do most of the Conservatives I know. While it’s true you get anti-immigrant sentiment on the hard Right of the party, the Conservatives, like any other party has a standard deviation of views, and those sorts of views are on one tail end. The “heart” of the party is the peak in the middle who are mainly concerned with pragmatic solutions to things: they see there are potential problems with a poor immigration system and weak integration and wish to rectify them. This is not from any anti-ethnic zealotry but from a desire to do whats best for the well working of society. And while immigration is an issue, for us in the centre of the party its not a major one - we’re more concerned about sound finances, fiscal policy thats conducive to economic growth, a more productive education system and making universal healthcare sustainable. I think you hold a prejudice that Conservatives are inherently racist so when one doesn’t have such views you claim its just trying to win votes, and when the occasional Tory does say something with racist undertones you claim its “the real heart”. I could just as much say that anti-Semitism and Soviet Union sympathising were the “true heart” to Labour with the same sort of evidence. It wouldn’t be true though would it?
33. While I agree Brown’s “Britishness” campaign is a PR joke, how is “Britishness” any more invented than “Englishness” or “Scottishness”? The first is a mixture of Britons, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Romans, Normans and the latter a mix of Picts, Britons, Scotti, Norse and Anglo-Saxons. Even more recently, the Celtic Highlanders and the Germanic Lowlanders had separate identities until the 18th Century. The nationalist myth of clean-cut distinct ethnic blocs is completely flawed. Personally I have “English”, “Welsh”, “Irish” and “Cornish” all in me. At the end of the day, the people of these islands have more in common than they have differences.
41. What is the problem with a gradually falling population? Sure it can cause massive problems if its on a Chinese scale, but the dependency ratio isn’t going to be too adversely affected by a gradual decrease. Indeed, this country is massively overpopulated, as can be seen by urban sprawl and our congested transport networks. We have the population of France in half the space.
Re. 3, it was excruciating, worthy of David Brent, and reminded me of the story about him telling an audience of engineers that engineers were great because they fixed our washing machines. The engineers, who did slightly more advanced work than fixing washing machines, were not amused. Or the time when he sent all his friends copies of David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, which he’d got cheap as part of a job lot. And, of course, there are the chewed finger nails. He just looks and sounds more and more like the Al Gore of 00, stiff, awkward, trying to be someone he’s not, and uncomfortable in his own skin, feeling that he’s got to live down his Scottishness the way Gore (mistakenly) felt he had to distance himself from Clinton.
As for the policy, as long as immigrants pay taxes, speak (or learn) English, and obey the law, there’s no need for them to do community work. More attention should be paid instead to having more secure borders, and knowing who’s in the country through the re-instatement of the old practice of counting people out of the country (something which other countries, such as Australia, still do).
I really hope that there’s a decent ABB candidate, such as John Denham. A choice between Brown or Miliband, and Brown or Meacher (who sued the Observer for suggesting he came from a middle-class background) or John McDonnell (with his vile apologies for the Provisional IRA) isn’t very inspiring.
“it’s the Sean T’s that are the real heart of the Tory Party.”
I certainly hope so.
Gordon has a bit of history of saying cheap populist stuff that he wants people to hear. Remember the Laura Spence / Magdalen College Oxford story? The facts emerged that those selected for that course were mainly state school, and that Laura Spence turned her back on medicine (so can’t have been very committed). Gordon’s cheap grab at publicity was based on a false premise, but it was what Labour loyalists wanted to hear.
His idea for immigrants doing voluntary work to become British citizens is equally cheap. Say somebody French or German or whatever (with Britsh other half) has been living here for years, works full time, and brings up kids here, and is domiciled here permanently And suppose they want to vote in a GE. Does Gordon think they need to do voluntary work to prove themselves?
Gordon will be remembered for his Chancellorship. But he does come out with some guff sometimes. The media assumes it has gravity, because his is the serious one, whereas Blair is the smiley one. But it is still rubbish. Will he continue this sort of behaviour as PM? I hope not!
That said, Gordon does not scare the sh!t out of me the way Reid does. And Millibland is just well, Millibland.
83 - sorry Nick P. Did not have a chance to see you had already answered my point about voluntary work.
Hi Pop Pickers,
You may or may not know that I was in a band at university called Ugly Rumours - which is a coincidence as it was my ugly rumours that got us into the war in Iraq in the first place! The war has killed approximately 650,000 civilians and more than 3000 British and US soldiers, without us finding any weapons of mass destruction.
I’ve joined up with Stop the War Coalition and CND to release a pro peace song. On the 26/02/07 “Ugly Rumours” - fronted by yours truly - are putting out a cover version of the Edwin Starr classic “War (What is it good for?)”. We are aiming to get the track in to the UK pop charts in March. March is the 4th year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and also when Parliament is due to discuss the issue of Trident. We can highlight the lack of support for the government on these issues via the pop charts. The mainstream media will report on it if enough people from StWC, CND and others who care buy our track. (Plus I want to be remembered as the UK’s highest charting British Prime Minister of all time!)
You can buy/pre-order the track NOW or at anytime by texting the word “PEACE1″ to 78789 or by clicking the button below. The song will only cost you £1.50 (plus standard network charges) with all the profits going to support the good work that Stop the War Coalition do. We only need around 5000 sales to get Ugly Rumours into the charts so please take the time to buy it NOW!
I know I didn’t give you a chance to vote on Britain going to war so please think of this as a musical referendum on me before I leave office!
PLEASE forward this site to as many people as you can and tell them about my great new single and video. (Check out my video below with cameos from my old friends, George Galloway, my real life sister in law Lauren Booth and Brian Hoare). You can join my Ugly Rumours fan club by entering you email address below, we will then send you exclusive video links for our other promos and information on how Ugly Rumours are progressing in the charts.
Yours always,
Tony Blair
uglyrumours@btinternet.com
P.S We will chart this weekend by all accounts