Bliar in Meltdown?
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Acknowledgments to Matt of
the Daily Telegraph
Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph 3 May 2006
There have been so many scandals, disgraces and resignations over the course of this Government - and, indeed, of the one that preceded it - that you would have thought every dodgy minister would by now know the form. When something awful happens, they protest their lack of culpability or, if forced to be culpable, the triviality of the offence. They are then hounded until they have to resign. They are damaged far more by the end of this ungainly process than they would have been had they walked the plank at the start of it.
The mess the Government is in now would not have been avoided had these lessons been learnt, but the damage might have been limited. Instead, the nation veers between baying with laughter and seething with contempt at a deputy prime minister who seems to regard the pursuit of casual sexual favours in much the same light as most of us regard the pursuit of pairs of socks.
As a respite from this light entertainment, we then have the spectacle of a home secretary who manifestly feels that neither his own credibility nor that of the administration of which he is a prominent member has been affected by his inability to stop our nation being awash with dangerous criminals who should be far from these shores………….
…………..It is ironic, too, that the morass of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister should have been exposed by his low behaviour towards women. No one should lose his ministerial job for committing adultery, though if public funds were misused to that end that would be a different matter. But it seems that Mr Prescott has for some years used his position in public life to recruit, or attempt to recruit, for carnal purposes women who work for his party or for the Government. We can assume that, in most cases, this was not why those women chose these particular careers.
Geraldine Smith, the Labour MP for Morecambe, says her female backbench colleagues view Mr Prescott's predatory activity with "horror and disbelief". Given what we know to be Tony Blair's views on the rights of women, it is hard to see why his deputy has lasted this long.
In fact, Mr Blair ought really to have sacked him long ago, for a variety of reasons. Mr Prescott has failed at every job he has attempted in the past nine years. His staff, even those he has not propositioned, loathe him and regard him as an oaf and a bully. Whether transport, housing, regional assemblies or environmental issues have been on his agenda, he has made a dog's breakfast of them all.
Keeping this priapic clown in a position that Mr Blair imagined matched his role as the incarnation of Old Labour has cost the taxpayer millions. It has contributed to shambolic misgovernment that has harmed the whole nation. While I have deep sympathy for the women he has harassed, nothing he did to them merits his resignation quite so much as the things he has done to the country.
It is on this that voters ought to reflect tomorrow. After all, if they find local government poor, they can recall that Mr Prescott has, during his miserable career, had much responsibility for it. If their local communities live in fear, the buck stops with Mr Clarke. Not voting Labour allows them to punish these ministers fairly and directly.
The mess the Government is in now would not have been avoided had these lessons been learnt, but the damage might have been limited. Instead, the nation veers between baying with laughter and seething with contempt at a deputy prime minister who seems to regard the pursuit of casual sexual favours in much the same light as most of us regard the pursuit of pairs of socks.
As a respite from this light entertainment, we then have the spectacle of a home secretary who manifestly feels that neither his own credibility nor that of the administration of which he is a prominent member has been affected by his inability to stop our nation being awash with dangerous criminals who should be far from these shores………….
…………..It is ironic, too, that the morass of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister should have been exposed by his low behaviour towards women. No one should lose his ministerial job for committing adultery, though if public funds were misused to that end that would be a different matter. But it seems that Mr Prescott has for some years used his position in public life to recruit, or attempt to recruit, for carnal purposes women who work for his party or for the Government. We can assume that, in most cases, this was not why those women chose these particular careers.
Geraldine Smith, the Labour MP for Morecambe, says her female backbench colleagues view Mr Prescott's predatory activity with "horror and disbelief". Given what we know to be Tony Blair's views on the rights of women, it is hard to see why his deputy has lasted this long.
In fact, Mr Blair ought really to have sacked him long ago, for a variety of reasons. Mr Prescott has failed at every job he has attempted in the past nine years. His staff, even those he has not propositioned, loathe him and regard him as an oaf and a bully. Whether transport, housing, regional assemblies or environmental issues have been on his agenda, he has made a dog's breakfast of them all.
Keeping this priapic clown in a position that Mr Blair imagined matched his role as the incarnation of Old Labour has cost the taxpayer millions. It has contributed to shambolic misgovernment that has harmed the whole nation. While I have deep sympathy for the women he has harassed, nothing he did to them merits his resignation quite so much as the things he has done to the country.
It is on this that voters ought to reflect tomorrow. After all, if they find local government poor, they can recall that Mr Prescott has, during his miserable career, had much responsibility for it. If their local communities live in fear, the buck stops with Mr Clarke. Not voting Labour allows them to punish these ministers fairly and directly.
I'm not generally a malicious person and the big softy in me tends to not let wounded animals suffer when they are so obviously in trouble.
In this case, I'll make an exception and have a good laugh at watching the buggers constantly shooting themselves in the foot. Part of me really doesn't want 2 Shags et al to resign - it's so much more fun watching them squirm every day.
So come on Tone, you've done us proud on the entertainment stakes so far, what's next?
In this case, I'll make an exception and have a good laugh at watching the buggers constantly shooting themselves in the foot. Part of me really doesn't want 2 Shags et al to resign - it's so much more fun watching them squirm every day.
So come on Tone, you've done us proud on the entertainment stakes so far, what's next?
Last edited by Melchett01; 3rd May 2006 at 12:03.
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Good call Melchers. Let our collective imaginations run riot. Here's my starter for one:
Mail on Sunday Headlines (Just to keep Maple happy)
AGRICULTURE MINISTER IN VEGETABLE TENT SHOCKER
The Agriculture Minister, ******, (insert Nu Labour parasite name) was remanded on bail last night (obviously can't bang up Nu Labour minister) after being apprehended interfering with a prize-winning pumpkin in the Guildford Womens' Institute Spring marquee. Government spokesmen were unavailable for comment last night (no surprises there, then). However a source close to the Government (No.10) said unofficially that a minister's relationship with his, or anyone else's vegetables were a private matter, and after all we did win the last election, didn't we?
OK. It's a start. I challenge the lot of you to come up with imaginary scenarios involving this shower of nasty incompetent idiots who are in government trying to justify why they should hang on to their well-paid jobs and outrageous pensions while poorly paid nurses are getting the sack. It's been almost 10 years. They have no excuse anymore.
Mail on Sunday Headlines (Just to keep Maple happy)
AGRICULTURE MINISTER IN VEGETABLE TENT SHOCKER
The Agriculture Minister, ******, (insert Nu Labour parasite name) was remanded on bail last night (obviously can't bang up Nu Labour minister) after being apprehended interfering with a prize-winning pumpkin in the Guildford Womens' Institute Spring marquee. Government spokesmen were unavailable for comment last night (no surprises there, then). However a source close to the Government (No.10) said unofficially that a minister's relationship with his, or anyone else's vegetables were a private matter, and after all we did win the last election, didn't we?
OK. It's a start. I challenge the lot of you to come up with imaginary scenarios involving this shower of nasty incompetent idiots who are in government trying to justify why they should hang on to their well-paid jobs and outrageous pensions while poorly paid nurses are getting the sack. It's been almost 10 years. They have no excuse anymore.
Blair in meltdown?
Judging by his performance in the House of Commons today at PM questions absolutely not!
The real reason he is NOT in meltdown?
Ministers reputations in tatters, sleaze and incompetence abounds, denials and ducking and weaving…………………………………with all this David (Tony Blair) Cameron could not make him look the battered defeated PM he should be. If he cannot take this opportunity then what on earth DOES it need?
Meltdown? No way, not whilst there is not sight nor sound of a decent opposition in sight!
Judging by his performance in the House of Commons today at PM questions absolutely not!
The real reason he is NOT in meltdown?
Ministers reputations in tatters, sleaze and incompetence abounds, denials and ducking and weaving…………………………………with all this David (Tony Blair) Cameron could not make him look the battered defeated PM he should be. If he cannot take this opportunity then what on earth DOES it need?
Meltdown? No way, not whilst there is not sight nor sound of a decent opposition in sight!
prOOne
I suppose you may have a point. But when you are as morally bankrupt and as contemptuous for the electorate at large, both Houses of Parliament and apparently totally oblivious to the concept of Ministerial and collective responsibility, then it's hardly suprising the recent disasters are like water off a duck's back to him.
After 9 years of successfully lying to and hoodwinking the electorate at every available opportunity, he now obviously believes his own lies. If I was as bad as him, I expect I could probably bluster my way through the incompetence, arrogance and sheer lies that this government is based on.
Where's the devil when you need him most - I reckon 90% of serving members on this site would make that Faustian pact to get rid of this fool in a heart beat. One of these days, his lies and spin are going to cost lives. Or should that be even more lives.
I suppose you may have a point. But when you are as morally bankrupt and as contemptuous for the electorate at large, both Houses of Parliament and apparently totally oblivious to the concept of Ministerial and collective responsibility, then it's hardly suprising the recent disasters are like water off a duck's back to him.
After 9 years of successfully lying to and hoodwinking the electorate at every available opportunity, he now obviously believes his own lies. If I was as bad as him, I expect I could probably bluster my way through the incompetence, arrogance and sheer lies that this government is based on.
Where's the devil when you need him most - I reckon 90% of serving members on this site would make that Faustian pact to get rid of this fool in a heart beat. One of these days, his lies and spin are going to cost lives. Or should that be even more lives.
Last edited by Melchett01; 3rd May 2006 at 23:02.
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Matt seems to hit the nail on the head with remarkable consistency!
prOOne
I agree with you entirely (for a change). The problem is that Cameron is setting himself up as Bliars natural political heir and therefore (following his and his coterie’s reasoning) cannot afford to damage Bliar’s image or challenge his so-called past achievements. Unless he heads off in a completely different strategic direction, for Cameron to do either of the foregoing would undercut the logic of his chosen stance and, indeed, the calculation is, play into the hands of Gordon Brown, who, on gaining power, would use Cameron’s former stance as a rod to beat him with.
A corollary event has been Cameron’s recent collusion with Bliar, in an un-minuted, one-on-one House of Commons meeting, over “cash for peerages”, as the Tories are just as guilty as “New Labour” in this area. Cameron does not want old Tory dirty linen to be washed in public, hence the stitch-up.
I personally think Cameron has got his head up his a*se but he seems more that happy to carry on tree hugging and stroking Tone, much to the detriment of providing a robust, effective and aggressive loyal opposition.
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This seems to be the explanation for the Tory stance, given by Dave’s mate, Boris Johnson. Seems bloody pathetic to me as I can't see bunny-hugging winning the next election.
Fed up with feeble Labour? Only you can put the boot in
By Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph, 04/05/2006
Fed up with feeble Labour? Only you can put the boot in
By Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph, 04/05/2006
Not so long ago, there appeared in these pages one of the best letters I have ever seen. It was a letter from a retired lieutenant-colonel. I have a feeling he lived in Gloucestershire and, even without having his precise words to hand, I can still feel the incandescent heat of his indignation.
Woffle, woffle…………
He spoke with the authentic voice of Telegraph man and, like so many Telegraph men, he spoke for England. "Sir," he said (and if I paraphrase or abbreviate, I hope he will forgive me), "isn't it time the Tory party stopped pretending to be some namby-pamby crochet club?", and he went on to wring the withers of the Opposition before kicking it smartly in the fetlocks and slapping it in the girth.
He didn't want any more of this bunny-hugging nonsense. He didn't want this green what-have-you. He didn't want to see any more of Her Majesty's oh-so-loyal Opposition poncing about on bikes. He wanted to see this Labour lot turfed out on their ear. He wanted to see Tory MPs fix bayonets and close with the enemy; or, failing that, he wanted the Government swiftly decapitated with a sharpened shovel. So would the Tories kindly cease their obsession with organic marrows and solar power and get on with opposing, which, after all, was what the taxpayer was paying them to do.
Woffle, woffle……….
That brilliant correspondent had contrived, in his cosmic yawp of irritation, to express the growing sense of unreality that is felt by the voters at large. Here we have a government in a state of Babylonian decadence, with three of the most senior ministers teetering on the brink of a richly deserved oblivion. After nine years, the Blair administration would seem to lie on its back like a wounded beetle, feelers feebly waggling, and yet the Tory party seems unable to bring down the gumboot of fate.
How come they are still there, people want to know. How can Charles Clarke possibly remain in office after he has allowed more than 1,000 foreign criminals to roam the streets when they should have been deported, and when those criminals have now been shown to have used their time at large to commit further sickening crimes, including rape and, it is now suspected, the murder of a police officer?
All I can say to the lieutenant-colonel is that I know how he feels, that Opposition is deeply frustrating, and that he, and everyone who agrees with him, has their very own chance, today, to put their boots in, to vote Labour out wherever they can, and do themselves what we Tories are unable to do, since the physical task of removing the ruling party from power is left to the people and the people alone.
Of course it is maddening to see Clarke and Patricia Hewitt still clinging to power; but if anything their performance is now an electoral advantage to the Tories. And as for John Prescott, there seems no point in the Opposition trying to elaborate on the magnificent efforts of the Mail, a newspaper that pays hundreds of thousands of pounds for smut and then snarls with splendid disapproval of the pornography it has procured. What could anyone hope to add?
I urge the lieutenant-colonel to be of good cheer, and to vote Tory, because I also think there is some misunderstanding of the great green Tory transformation.
There are two ways of thinking about the environment, and taking an interest in the future of the planet. The first is to be endlessly steeped in moral disapproval, to dislike growth, spending, Ferraris, Solero ice-creams and everything that makes life worth living.
These sorts of greens don't really care about the environment, or at least they don't primarily care about the environment. Like those who oppose hunting, they are really actuated by hatred of the mental states of others. They want to parade their consciences, to control and to inhibit.
That is not the Tory approach - or at least not as I understand it. We don't believe that you have to live on tofu and rear goats in order to be good to the environment. We are optimists, and we believe that there are more solutions in technology and progress than in mass self-denial and new regulation, and that you can still aspire to drive a Ferrari, except that one day it will be a beautiful clean green Ferrari powered by a hydrogen fuel cell developed in the labs of South Oxfordshire.
We don't want to coerce and constrain; we want to help people in their very natural desire to improve the world around them, and sometimes you can achieve this by removing controls, not imposing them.
Every morning I come out of my house and am bathed by a great horrible gust of gas-smelling vapour from the boiler. Wouldn't it be better if there were no planning restrictions on the completely inoffensive solar panels I want to install; and wouldn't it be a good thing if these panels consequently became far more affordable for everyone?
The essence of the Tory approach is that there are still plenty of ways of beautifying the world and sparing the taxpayer. Tory councils have done it up and down the country. Vote Blue, go Green, save money.
Woffle, woffle…………
He spoke with the authentic voice of Telegraph man and, like so many Telegraph men, he spoke for England. "Sir," he said (and if I paraphrase or abbreviate, I hope he will forgive me), "isn't it time the Tory party stopped pretending to be some namby-pamby crochet club?", and he went on to wring the withers of the Opposition before kicking it smartly in the fetlocks and slapping it in the girth.
He didn't want any more of this bunny-hugging nonsense. He didn't want this green what-have-you. He didn't want to see any more of Her Majesty's oh-so-loyal Opposition poncing about on bikes. He wanted to see this Labour lot turfed out on their ear. He wanted to see Tory MPs fix bayonets and close with the enemy; or, failing that, he wanted the Government swiftly decapitated with a sharpened shovel. So would the Tories kindly cease their obsession with organic marrows and solar power and get on with opposing, which, after all, was what the taxpayer was paying them to do.
Woffle, woffle……….
That brilliant correspondent had contrived, in his cosmic yawp of irritation, to express the growing sense of unreality that is felt by the voters at large. Here we have a government in a state of Babylonian decadence, with three of the most senior ministers teetering on the brink of a richly deserved oblivion. After nine years, the Blair administration would seem to lie on its back like a wounded beetle, feelers feebly waggling, and yet the Tory party seems unable to bring down the gumboot of fate.
How come they are still there, people want to know. How can Charles Clarke possibly remain in office after he has allowed more than 1,000 foreign criminals to roam the streets when they should have been deported, and when those criminals have now been shown to have used their time at large to commit further sickening crimes, including rape and, it is now suspected, the murder of a police officer?
All I can say to the lieutenant-colonel is that I know how he feels, that Opposition is deeply frustrating, and that he, and everyone who agrees with him, has their very own chance, today, to put their boots in, to vote Labour out wherever they can, and do themselves what we Tories are unable to do, since the physical task of removing the ruling party from power is left to the people and the people alone.
Of course it is maddening to see Clarke and Patricia Hewitt still clinging to power; but if anything their performance is now an electoral advantage to the Tories. And as for John Prescott, there seems no point in the Opposition trying to elaborate on the magnificent efforts of the Mail, a newspaper that pays hundreds of thousands of pounds for smut and then snarls with splendid disapproval of the pornography it has procured. What could anyone hope to add?
I urge the lieutenant-colonel to be of good cheer, and to vote Tory, because I also think there is some misunderstanding of the great green Tory transformation.
There are two ways of thinking about the environment, and taking an interest in the future of the planet. The first is to be endlessly steeped in moral disapproval, to dislike growth, spending, Ferraris, Solero ice-creams and everything that makes life worth living.
These sorts of greens don't really care about the environment, or at least they don't primarily care about the environment. Like those who oppose hunting, they are really actuated by hatred of the mental states of others. They want to parade their consciences, to control and to inhibit.
That is not the Tory approach - or at least not as I understand it. We don't believe that you have to live on tofu and rear goats in order to be good to the environment. We are optimists, and we believe that there are more solutions in technology and progress than in mass self-denial and new regulation, and that you can still aspire to drive a Ferrari, except that one day it will be a beautiful clean green Ferrari powered by a hydrogen fuel cell developed in the labs of South Oxfordshire.
We don't want to coerce and constrain; we want to help people in their very natural desire to improve the world around them, and sometimes you can achieve this by removing controls, not imposing them.
Every morning I come out of my house and am bathed by a great horrible gust of gas-smelling vapour from the boiler. Wouldn't it be better if there were no planning restrictions on the completely inoffensive solar panels I want to install; and wouldn't it be a good thing if these panels consequently became far more affordable for everyone?
The essence of the Tory approach is that there are still plenty of ways of beautifying the world and sparing the taxpayer. Tory councils have done it up and down the country. Vote Blue, go Green, save money.
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Bliar reshuffles Cabinet......
I see that our Mr Bliar is re-shuffling the Cabinet this morning......
This should be good......., any thoughts of who will go and why.....?
Mind you..., at this stage of his tenure..., a reshuffle of the Cabinet would be as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic..... !
GengisK
This should be good......., any thoughts of who will go and why.....?
Mind you..., at this stage of his tenure..., a reshuffle of the Cabinet would be as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic..... !
GengisK
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Can this be the start of the Meltdown, then?
Nightmare on Downing Street
Daily Telegraph, George Jones, 06/05/2006
Daily Telegraph, George Jones, 06/05/2006
Tony Blair carried out his biggest and most brutal Cabinet reshuffle yesterday as he attempted to shore up his position after one of the worst ever local election performances in Labour's history.
He signalled his determination to remain in Downing Street by promoting trusted and loyal ministers, sacking Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and demoting six ministers, including Jack Straw and the disgraced John Prescott.
It was a defiant rebuff for supporters of Gordon Brown who stepped up their demands for Mr Blair to quit after Labour was relegated to third place behind the Tories and the Liberal Democrats and lost control of 18 local authorities.
But there was no sign that it had strengthened Mr Blair's authority, with growing calls last night from senior backbenchers for him to set out a timetable for a handover to the Chancellor.
Left-wing Labour MPs claimed they now had 50 signatories for a letter calling on Mr Blair to set an "early end date" to his premiership. They need 70 to force a leadership challenge.
At breakfast time, as the results were still coming in, Mr Blair embarked on his long-awaited reshuffle, with more than half the ministers in the Cabinet changing places.
It was an attempt to deflect attention from Labour's humiliation as the Tories capped Mr Blair's worst two weeks in power by achieving their best electoral triumph in a generation under their new leader David Cameron.
Last night the Tories had gained 300 council seats and 40 per cent of the vote - the share needed to secure power at a general election.
He signalled his determination to remain in Downing Street by promoting trusted and loyal ministers, sacking Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and demoting six ministers, including Jack Straw and the disgraced John Prescott.
It was a defiant rebuff for supporters of Gordon Brown who stepped up their demands for Mr Blair to quit after Labour was relegated to third place behind the Tories and the Liberal Democrats and lost control of 18 local authorities.
But there was no sign that it had strengthened Mr Blair's authority, with growing calls last night from senior backbenchers for him to set out a timetable for a handover to the Chancellor.
Left-wing Labour MPs claimed they now had 50 signatories for a letter calling on Mr Blair to set an "early end date" to his premiership. They need 70 to force a leadership challenge.
At breakfast time, as the results were still coming in, Mr Blair embarked on his long-awaited reshuffle, with more than half the ministers in the Cabinet changing places.
It was an attempt to deflect attention from Labour's humiliation as the Tories capped Mr Blair's worst two weeks in power by achieving their best electoral triumph in a generation under their new leader David Cameron.
Last night the Tories had gained 300 council seats and 40 per cent of the vote - the share needed to secure power at a general election.
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Proone
Your stout but blind defence of Bliar does you credit. However, he is finished. The damage he has done to the Country is significant, and without question his mendacity and conniving with scum like Campbell has degraded politics and politicians in the eyes of many long suffering voters (especially protest non voters - not a tactic I approve of but that is another thread ?)
If you genuinely believe the results are not a shattering indictment of Bliar's Government's incompetence then I fear for your well being after the next general election - I hope you live in a Bungalow . Once the population recognise the grasping thief we have in our Scottish Chancellor and the damage he has wrought on sensible and legal Trusts, Inheritance and Pensions then he too will be a lame duck PM once he and his Westminster cohorts shaft Bliar.
Not an edifying spectacle but a satisfying one when one considers the hypocrisy, broken promises and rank failure of the Government
Your stout but blind defence of Bliar does you credit. However, he is finished. The damage he has done to the Country is significant, and without question his mendacity and conniving with scum like Campbell has degraded politics and politicians in the eyes of many long suffering voters (especially protest non voters - not a tactic I approve of but that is another thread ?)
If you genuinely believe the results are not a shattering indictment of Bliar's Government's incompetence then I fear for your well being after the next general election - I hope you live in a Bungalow
. Once the population recognise the grasping thief we have in our Scottish Chancellor and the damage he has wrought on sensible and legal Trusts, Inheritance and Pensions then he too will be a lame duck PM once he and his Westminster cohorts shaft Bliar.Not an edifying spectacle but a satisfying one when one considers the hypocrisy, broken promises and rank failure of the Government
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The damage he has done to the Country is significant
In my area since Labour came to office in 1997, waiting lists are down, investment is up, and there are 1,439 more nurses and 657 more doctors caring for patients.
Since 1997, standards in our schools have risen across the board and there are now 500 more teachers helping children in Local Education Authority.
Unemployment is down by 58 per cent
Our streets are safer, crime is down and there are now 410 more police officers fighting crime in the Yorkshire Police Force than in 1997.
when one considers the hypocrisy, broken promises and rank failure of the Government
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Statistics ! Every time one analyses New Labour stats they just don't add up to the overall decay in the system do they ? Did you not see the Health Secretary's problems as voiced by NHS staff so eloquently ?
Of course, Bliars art is conning otherwise intelligent people into believing his "utter tosh". I take it you believe the "media conspiracy" theory behind the Goverments total disarray, and disbelief that they have been found out at last for their hypocrisy, incompetence and total mismanagement of the country.
Keep your delusions, for I think we have finally seen the beginning of end of Labour. Blair in particular has much to answer for to the Kelly family for a start, then we can analyse the Iraq debacle and the fact that whilst even doing the right thing (imho) Bliar's instinct as a congenital liar came to the fore and he had to pull yet another con
Of course, Bliars art is conning otherwise intelligent people into believing his "utter tosh". I take it you believe the "media conspiracy" theory behind the Goverments total disarray, and disbelief that they have been found out at last for their hypocrisy, incompetence and total mismanagement of the country.
Keep your delusions, for I think we have finally seen the beginning of end of Labour. Blair in particular has much to answer for to the Kelly family for a start, then we can analyse the Iraq debacle and the fact that whilst even doing the right thing (imho) Bliar's instinct as a congenital liar came to the fore and he had to pull yet another con
rafloo, what was it my namesake, the erstwhile Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanny Melchett said? "If nothing else works, then a total pigheaded unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through"
Well I'm glad things are rosy in your bit of the Blair Empire; shame about the rest of the country. So I take it you are happy about seeing your taxes going up year after year? And that any provision you might have made for you family when you depart for the final time may now have to be revisited following Brown's 10 year smash and grab raid?
Have you seen a commensurate increase in the standards and provisions of service that your increasing taxes are paying for? I suspect not. Of the extra 1439 nurses and 657 doctors, how many extra managers do you think there are? And how long do you think you will have the extra staff once these new contracts kick in and you local health authority can't afford to pay them? It will be the doctors and nurses that go, not the managers.
As for unemployment figures, I will grant you it has fallen in recent years; but how much of that is due to massaging statistics and re-branding? Unless I am mistaken, you can be out of work and claiming benefit but not appear in the unemployment figures - it all depends which benefits you are on. I suspect the number of people claiming benefits other than unemployment benefit is somewhat higher than officials would like to admit.
Well the safer streets and more police didn't keep WPC Sharon Beshenivsky alive did they - and looking at your profile that did't happen that far from your neck of the woods.
And who in their right minds who hadn't totally lost the plot would appoint Margaret Beckett as Foreign Minister? She has all the presence of a tin of magnolia paint DHE are so fond of slapping on our walls. I really can't see Bliar's attempt at creating a British Conoleza Rice as being a great success - she should have stayed where she was, out of sight and earshot.
At the end of the day rafloo, it's all about statistics as you have quoted. However, 78.3% of all statistics are made up. I know this, I was told by a Noo Labour advisor
Well I'm glad things are rosy in your bit of the Blair Empire; shame about the rest of the country. So I take it you are happy about seeing your taxes going up year after year? And that any provision you might have made for you family when you depart for the final time may now have to be revisited following Brown's 10 year smash and grab raid?
Have you seen a commensurate increase in the standards and provisions of service that your increasing taxes are paying for? I suspect not. Of the extra 1439 nurses and 657 doctors, how many extra managers do you think there are? And how long do you think you will have the extra staff once these new contracts kick in and you local health authority can't afford to pay them? It will be the doctors and nurses that go, not the managers.
As for unemployment figures, I will grant you it has fallen in recent years; but how much of that is due to massaging statistics and re-branding? Unless I am mistaken, you can be out of work and claiming benefit but not appear in the unemployment figures - it all depends which benefits you are on. I suspect the number of people claiming benefits other than unemployment benefit is somewhat higher than officials would like to admit.
Our streets are safer, crime is down and there are now 410 more police officers fighting crime in the Yorkshire Police Force than in 1997
And who in their right minds who hadn't totally lost the plot would appoint Margaret Beckett as Foreign Minister? She has all the presence of a tin of magnolia paint DHE are so fond of slapping on our walls. I really can't see Bliar's attempt at creating a British Conoleza Rice as being a great success - she should have stayed where she was, out of sight and earshot.
At the end of the day rafloo, it's all about statistics as you have quoted. However, 78.3% of all statistics are made up. I know this, I was told by a Noo Labour advisor
Last edited by Melchett01; 6th May 2006 at 11:06.
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I'm pleased Noo Labour got whacked
Noo Labour deserved to get whacked in the local elections, and it was splendid to see - the voters are now waking up to the fact that this present government is a walking disaster through and through; lacking in all departments.
I am 'with' Stafford and Melchett01 and their like, for they can see through the smoke and mirrors of this despicable tribe of usless government tossers.
It is unfortunate we still get Noo Labour supporters who refuse to see the truth. Rafloo how can you contemplate the notion that education standards have risen across the board - what absolute tripe man!
Quote:
Failing students given pass marks
Published in Newsvote.bbc.co.uk
Indexed on Apr 24, 2006
University students with exam marks as low as 26% were given pass grades in an effort to reduce failure rates, documents reveal.
Leicester's De Montfort University raised marks for five modules of a pharmacy course in 2004, the Times Higher Education Supplement found.
In one, they were increased by up to 14 percentage points, details gained under the Freedom of Information Act show. The university said it had "every confidence" in its pharmacy course.
'Not up to it' In 2004 staff were told that failure rates of 50% could put their jobs at risk, meeting minutes show. Continue reading...
Unquote
I sent an email to BLIAr - but it will never reach the clown:
Dear Mr Blair,
Seems you have dished out some of the medicine a Mr O. Cromwell did a while back!
It's been too long a Parliament for us, and YOU should have taken the medicine too!
However, you never have had courage (Mr Clarke should have been 'fired' last week, and that charade about "he has my full support" stuff was pathetic Tony) so I can understand your fanatical grip on power - any excuse will do.
are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance? Most certainly.
Quote:
"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue and defiled by your every vice.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches and like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you?
Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God.
Which of you has not battered your conscience with bribes?
Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the commonwealth?
Ye furdid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation.
You were deputed here to get grievances redressed; are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance?
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean stable by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house and which by God's help and the strength he has given me I am now come to do I command ye therefore upon the peril of your lives to depart immediately out of this place........
Go and get out, make haste ye venal slaves be gone - so take away that shining bauble there and lock up the doors."
Unquote
part of Oliver Cromwell's speech (1599-1658) when he dissolved The Long Parliament.
-------------
When a nation has to put up with a Minister proven to have been usless when the chips are down, and the PM "supports" such failings, then things must change PDQ.
Another email off to BLIAr......... and his puppets.
I refer to what Mr Blair told the News of the World: "I don't think I'm going to speculate. It depends on what happens, what the reasons are."
This equates to a pub full of proven drunks getting into their cars and driving off in full view of a posse of police cars.
Would it be irresponsible for the police to do absolutely nothing - certainly. Would their lack of positive action be culpable negligence - certainly.
The PM doing nothing and waiting to see "what happens" next is an act of insufferable political cowardice and intolerable stupidity and negligence of Titanic proportions.
-------------
This government is getting the kicking it deserves - through the latest local election results - and I hope it hurts them further.
The changes BLIAr has made was likened to moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic - a sad fact.
You cannot polish a tur^
TG
I am 'with' Stafford and Melchett01 and their like, for they can see through the smoke and mirrors of this despicable tribe of usless government tossers.
It is unfortunate we still get Noo Labour supporters who refuse to see the truth. Rafloo how can you contemplate the notion that education standards have risen across the board - what absolute tripe man!
Quote:
Failing students given pass marks
Published in Newsvote.bbc.co.uk
Indexed on Apr 24, 2006
University students with exam marks as low as 26% were given pass grades in an effort to reduce failure rates, documents reveal.
Leicester's De Montfort University raised marks for five modules of a pharmacy course in 2004, the Times Higher Education Supplement found.
In one, they were increased by up to 14 percentage points, details gained under the Freedom of Information Act show. The university said it had "every confidence" in its pharmacy course.
'Not up to it' In 2004 staff were told that failure rates of 50% could put their jobs at risk, meeting minutes show. Continue reading...
Unquote
I sent an email to BLIAr - but it will never reach the clown:
Dear Mr Blair,
Seems you have dished out some of the medicine a Mr O. Cromwell did a while back!
It's been too long a Parliament for us, and YOU should have taken the medicine too!
However, you never have had courage (Mr Clarke should have been 'fired' last week, and that charade about "he has my full support" stuff was pathetic Tony) so I can understand your fanatical grip on power - any excuse will do.
are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance? Most certainly.
Quote:
"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue and defiled by your every vice.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches and like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you?
Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God.
Which of you has not battered your conscience with bribes?
Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the commonwealth?
Ye furdid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation.
You were deputed here to get grievances redressed; are not yourselves become the greatest the grievance?
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean stable by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house and which by God's help and the strength he has given me I am now come to do I command ye therefore upon the peril of your lives to depart immediately out of this place........
Go and get out, make haste ye venal slaves be gone - so take away that shining bauble there and lock up the doors."
Unquote
part of Oliver Cromwell's speech (1599-1658) when he dissolved The Long Parliament.
-------------
When a nation has to put up with a Minister proven to have been usless when the chips are down, and the PM "supports" such failings, then things must change PDQ.
Another email off to BLIAr......... and his puppets.
I refer to what Mr Blair told the News of the World: "I don't think I'm going to speculate. It depends on what happens, what the reasons are."
This equates to a pub full of proven drunks getting into their cars and driving off in full view of a posse of police cars.
Would it be irresponsible for the police to do absolutely nothing - certainly. Would their lack of positive action be culpable negligence - certainly.
The PM doing nothing and waiting to see "what happens" next is an act of insufferable political cowardice and intolerable stupidity and negligence of Titanic proportions.
-------------
This government is getting the kicking it deserves - through the latest local election results - and I hope it hurts them further.
The changes BLIAr has made was likened to moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic - a sad fact.
You cannot polish a tur^
TG
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From an article by Theodore Dalrymple, rebuting a fatuous piece on Tony Bliar, written for the New York Times by Thomas Fredman. rafloo in particular may be interested in its content.
The prime minister is a poor model for U.S. Democrats, 3 May 2005
The prime minister is a poor model for U.S. Democrats, 3 May 2005
The British economy is far from healthy. Its growth rests on vast personal indebtedness secured by rising real-estate prices. It perennially produces less than it consumes. It is thus a kind of pyramid scheme that is liable to sudden collapse. Its supposedly low unemployment rate is a myth: the unemployed have simply been moved onto the disability rolls—there are now more alleged invalids in Britain than after the First World War. Half the jobs created in the last eight years are in the public sector or are directly dependent on it, and the vast majority of those jobs are not merely non-productive but anti-productive. Their only economic function is as a Keynesian stimulus that cannot long be sustained in the absence of other, genuinely productive economic activity, which these jobs preempt. Not only is the budget deficit increasing fast, but the proportion of the GDP taken up by the public sector is now relentlessly rising. As for the deftness of finance chief Brown: consider that, against all advice, he sold most of Britain’s gold reserves just when gold was at its lowest price for years (depressing the price still further) and just before it was about to double. His taxation of pension funds (in effect, a violation of the prohibition against ex-post-facto legislation) means that they yield 25 percent less than they did before he turned his attention to them. In an aging society, this is no small matter. It is building up poverty for the future.
Government regulation is increasing rapidly in almost all spheres. Hardly anyone, from the liberal professions to small shopkeepers, does not feel the increased weight of such government interference, which results not only in inefficiency but in a much-reduced quality of life. From the point of view of civil liberties, Blair’s government is the most illiberal in recent British history. It has abolished the legal prohibition of double jeopardy and wants to introduce the preventive detention of people deemed dangerous by doctors but who have never committed an offense. It has recently extended the use of absentee ballots, with the utterly foreseeable result of wholesale electoral fraud—in Labour’s favor, of course.
The Times’s Friedman says that expenditure on schools and hospitals has risen in Britain, which is certainly true: but, as in America, rising inputs don’t necessarily produce improved results. The opposite is in fact the case, as a visit to a British hospital would quickly establish.
Insofar as the Blair government has not failed comprehensively, it is because it has not yet totally undone the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s: reforms which Messrs. Blair and Brown built their careers opposing.
Friedman hopes the Democrats will learn lessons from Mr. Blair: I hope so too, but not the lessons that he hopes they will learn.
Government regulation is increasing rapidly in almost all spheres. Hardly anyone, from the liberal professions to small shopkeepers, does not feel the increased weight of such government interference, which results not only in inefficiency but in a much-reduced quality of life. From the point of view of civil liberties, Blair’s government is the most illiberal in recent British history. It has abolished the legal prohibition of double jeopardy and wants to introduce the preventive detention of people deemed dangerous by doctors but who have never committed an offense. It has recently extended the use of absentee ballots, with the utterly foreseeable result of wholesale electoral fraud—in Labour’s favor, of course.
The Times’s Friedman says that expenditure on schools and hospitals has risen in Britain, which is certainly true: but, as in America, rising inputs don’t necessarily produce improved results. The opposite is in fact the case, as a visit to a British hospital would quickly establish.
Insofar as the Blair government has not failed comprehensively, it is because it has not yet totally undone the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s: reforms which Messrs. Blair and Brown built their careers opposing.
Friedman hopes the Democrats will learn lessons from Mr. Blair: I hope so too, but not the lessons that he hopes they will learn.
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The Agriculture Minister, was remanded on bail last night after being apprehended interfering with a prize-winning pumpkin in the Guildford Womens' Institute Spring marquee.
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Temperature rising towards the Meltdown?
Open warfare looms as Brown manoeuvres to oust old rival
Both camps fear battle over succession could go public and damage party
Patrick Wintour
Monday May 8, 2006. The Guardian
Labour at war as Number 10 condemns plot to oust Blair
By George Jones
Daily Telegraph. 08/05/2006
Blair to warn of polls disaster if he is forced out
By Jean Eaglesham. Financial Times. May 7 2006 20:34
Both camps fear battle over succession could go public and damage party
Patrick Wintour
Monday May 8, 2006. The Guardian
Relations between the prime minister and Gordon Brown's camp are described by both sides as dangerous, with only a few figures at the heart of the dispute still hopeful that the crisis can be resolved without the blood-letting that ended Thatcherism and left the Tory party unelectable for a decade.
At dispute is whether a private assurance on a handover date is any longer sufficient.
Both men were on the brink of open warfare yesterday. Mr Brown in two TV appearances and a charity walkabout gave the impression of a man on the campaign trail waiting impatiently for the prime minister to call it a day. He stuck to his mantra of wanting a stable and orderly transition, but he did so in the knowledge that forces are now organising on the backbenches, on the party national executive and in the unions to prise Mr Blair from office.
At dispute is whether a private assurance on a handover date is any longer sufficient.
Both men were on the brink of open warfare yesterday. Mr Brown in two TV appearances and a charity walkabout gave the impression of a man on the campaign trail waiting impatiently for the prime minister to call it a day. He stuck to his mantra of wanting a stable and orderly transition, but he did so in the knowledge that forces are now organising on the backbenches, on the party national executive and in the unions to prise Mr Blair from office.
By George Jones
Daily Telegraph. 08/05/2006
Labour was plunged into its worst infighting for a generation yesterday after Downing Street issued a warning of a plot by rebel MPs to oust Tony Blair and take the party back to the Left.
Demands for the Prime Minister to set a timetable for handing over power to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, were denounced by No 10 and leading Blairites as an attempt to force him out of office by the summer.
Months of internal bickering between supporters of the two men burst into the open as pressure mounted on Mr Blair to set a date when he would stand down after the party's heavy losses in last week's local elections.
Mr Brown repeatedly called on Mr Blair to plan for "a stable and orderly transition" of power but refused to endorse back-bench moves to oust him. He said a coup against Mr Blair would be "a recipe for disaster".
No 10 denounced calls for Mr Blair to name a departure date as a Left-wing plot to remove him quickly and take Labour "back to its old ways".
Demands for the Prime Minister to set a timetable for handing over power to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, were denounced by No 10 and leading Blairites as an attempt to force him out of office by the summer.
Months of internal bickering between supporters of the two men burst into the open as pressure mounted on Mr Blair to set a date when he would stand down after the party's heavy losses in last week's local elections.
Mr Brown repeatedly called on Mr Blair to plan for "a stable and orderly transition" of power but refused to endorse back-bench moves to oust him. He said a coup against Mr Blair would be "a recipe for disaster".
No 10 denounced calls for Mr Blair to name a departure date as a Left-wing plot to remove him quickly and take Labour "back to its old ways".
By Jean Eaglesham. Financial Times. May 7 2006 20:34
Tony Blair risked civil war in his party by authorising cabinet allies to warn a band of at least 50 rebel Labour MPs that a forced change of leader would lead to electoral disaster.
The defiant prime minister will on Monday use a press conference and a speech to Labour MPs to stress the risks of not driving through reform. His emissaries were sent out to “spell out, in stark terms, the risks [of a rebellion] before anything crystallises that danger”, a senior Labour official told the Financial Times, adding that “he is not going to have a timetable for his leaving dictated to him”.
The defiant prime minister will on Monday use a press conference and a speech to Labour MPs to stress the risks of not driving through reform. His emissaries were sent out to “spell out, in stark terms, the risks [of a rebellion] before anything crystallises that danger”, a senior Labour official told the Financial Times, adding that “he is not going to have a timetable for his leaving dictated to him”.
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Tony Blair risked civil war in his party by authorising cabinet allies to warn a band of at least 50 rebel Labour MPs that a forced change of leader would lead to electoral disaster
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He can't go yet. He hasn't had a chance to introduce the flawed legislation to deport murders and rapists who have no right to live here. Their loss of civil liberties will be a nice earner for his wife when she sues the UK taxpayer