Rallying the troops

The point of it was that Gordo used the 2p or not 2p 2007 budget to wrong-foot the Tories and ensure his unchallenged coronation. In the end decisions made for political reasons are almost always bad decisions, and that's why Brown is so utterly useless. Everything he does is politically motivated and done out of self interest.
The longer he stays, the worse the humiliation will be when the election is called.

Even Ms Dunwoody at Crewe and Nantwich was unable to answer the question whether Gordon Brown was an asset or a liability, thrice the cock crowed and thrice she refused to answer.
Incidentally, Ms Blears taking notes to Cabinet to raise the idea of Gordo appearing in a BBC political version of "The Apprentice" just shows how much Labour are out of touch with reality. I do hope the BBC commission the programme. It will be worth millions of votes to opposition parties.
Perhaps as someone noted on another site. , "Gordo won't say "You're fired" he'll just throw a mobile phone at them !!!!

I am looking forward to seeing some of these policies that Gordon has been thinking about. We have had 12 months and more of the new unelected PM, but no policies, just emergency, followed by disaster, followed by catastrophe, followed by a bit more of each.
As a man of 'vision' or so he claims, he is a little late in the day to be issuing policy - or am I missing something? Also surely the policy he should be following was the manifesto he wrote, whilst he was not looking at the funding coming in to pay for the last election.
Finally on the Apprentice idea, I have just read about it in the paper. I cannot believe the depths that this government is willing to stoop. Getting on with running the country, doing the job, focussed on what is important seem to be his catchphrases, maybe he can be Siral when he has been fired himself at the next general election.

(Professional politicians should not be allowed. It does not provide us with talent in government as has been proven, and I am unsure if we should allow too many lawyers into the chamber either!)

Like a Greek tragedy Brown and his henchmen think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater. Sadly hubris is alive and well and we all know the outcome!

The sooner Gordo realises it is not only about the 10p tax it is the whole package. It is stale... today at PMQs when he is asked the difficult questions he will mutter something about policy shortages in the tories then reel off a load of "labour victories!"

The smoking ban, the faltering economy, high inflation, falling house prices, food and fuel increasing all the time, complete lack of investment in rural areas, infighting and just general incompetency make this government a very unappealing prospect.

Nick, I thought you were making a reference to the "War of Jennifer's Ear"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jennifer%27s_Ear

The 10p bungle was bad. it has now been corrected and I hope Gordon Brown realises that nobody thought that was fair.it has been dealt with and we should all move on.
There is something to be said for someone who can admit the error of their ways unlike Sham Cam who never makes mistakes.
Take away Cameron's friends in the Murdoch press and media or better still ask them to analyse his spoutings.
Rebekkah Wade the editor of the Sun is said to be a frequent guest around the Cameron's social friends, there is now nothing to chose between Adam Bolton blog-site and Conservative Home so much so that even on Conservative Home site they have made mention that the Sky journalists take the most awful picture of Brown they can find to highlight their articles. A Murdoch organisation as per usual, one would never suspect that this Country has a Labour Party as well as a Liberal Party as on the Sky blog Labour is detested and the Liberals never get a mention.
I wonder if Coulson is at the bottom of this lot?
No matter we all must ask ourselves do we wish to be led by our political party's or do we wish to be dictated to by the Murdoch press and media.
I hope Labour polticians are paying attention to it and I hope they do not give them succour in the days to come.
Do not give them any more ammuntion, get behind Gordon Brown he is by far head and shoulders above Cameron but this constant vendetta is there for one purpose alone that is to undermine him.
Pay attention to PMQ's today there will be more character assassination of GB and little questions about policy.
Cameron is good with the one liners but do we really wish this in a leader.
I see it as a man of substance against a man of straw.
Shallow fliflopping Cameron all over the place along with his hoppo Osborne the silly little boy playing at politics.

I still don't believe a word they say, and no amount of U-turns, lies, spin, or anything else will change that. Let's hope the people of Crewe and Nantwich feel the same way.

It’s still a big sell.

The electorate still has to be persuaded that it has been fully reimbursed (which it seems it has not), that the government is not in chaos (which it seems it is), that this is not an electoral sop (which it very much looks like).

Then there are the questions of why the Mr Brown imposed these measures on the poorest in the first place and why he wouldn’t listen for so long.

Bit to go yet.

Surely when Government acts under public pressure it's democracy working at its best. Lets put things in prespective, this is not like the Poll Tax debacle of the Thatcher years. The people have voiced an opinion and policy has changed, that's what it should be like!

However bad Labour are, the Tories will always be a lot worse!!!!!

As a sufferer under the 10p tax changes, and a life long Labour voter, I am staggered at the political ineptitude shown here.

It is reasonable to expect a certain deftness in one's political leader and such a display of political clumsiness leads me to believe this man will not last the course and Labour will face the next general election under a new and more 'aware' politician.

I would love to ask him how many votes the 'non-doms' have compared to 10p tax payers.

Ps I don't get paid my heating allowance until March!! So much for sharing our pain!!

I don't know how Gordon has the gall to face the House of Commons every week at PMQs, and then completely ignore every question asked and answer a different one giving a Labour spin on the subject. Personally I think it is showing complete contempt for the House and he should be banned from the Chamber! Unfortunately, with a second Labour Speaker in power (and where were the objections to that?) the likelyhood of this is slight. It seems to me that Legislature is not doing its job, which is to hold the Executive to account at every turn, and in which case we are a Democracy no longer. This is creeping totalitarianism, and by the time something is thought to be done about it, it may be to late.

"Cameron is good with the one liners but do we really wish this in a leader.
I see it as a man of substance against a man of straw.
Shallow fliflopping Cameron all over the place along with his hoppo Osborne the silly little boy playing at politics."

So Gordon Brown is beyond approach and is a man of substance eh. I suggest there are very few who would agree with you. The man is flawed. He is afraid to make big decisions and when he does so they are the wrong ones. He is annoyed by those that disagree with him and is only really interested in policy announcements that will win him votes!! He was desperate to get the top job and now that he has is clinging on by his fingernails determined to use every trick in the book to stay in power!

Rallying the troops?

Spending your way out of trouble when you told us you had no money, more like.

They bought their way out of Northern Rock. They bought votes with the tax credits system; they bought votes in the NHS; they even allowed their supporters to buy peerages.

It's a bit poor that all you have to do is wave a few fivers around and the Labour back benches all cheer in unison. It explains a lot about how they think.

It's a bit odd that a chancellor who was supposed to be an accomplished economist has turned out to have such slapdash and hapless ways with the public purse. He doesn't seem to understand money at all; who generates it or how to spend it and get value for money.

His golden legacy is to give away our gold at rock bottom prices; to ruin the personal pension system; to create millions of public sector jobs with index linked final salary pensions that everyone else will have to pay for; to create billions of pounds of additional off balance sheet government debt and to still claim he was the greatest ever chancellor.

He has started to be defrocked as the biggest peddlar of snake oil in living memory and there is nothing he can do to stop it.

**10. At 10:17 am on 14 May 2008, deep_breath_sedna wrote:

However bad Labour are, the Tories will always be a lot worse!!!!! ***

What daft comment D_B_Sedna. The country is in a state of cripplingly low morale and being exploited by incompetent morons. How can it possibly be worse under a younger, cleverer and fresher government?

Hi Nick, rather than a new set of policies wouldn't the PM be better to re-shuffle his front bench. I don't think the electorate want new ideas they would rather see the day to day business of government handled competently. Surely Alisdair Darling has to be moved after the computer disk fiasco, the handling of Northern Rock and the 10 pence tax row. His reputation is in tatters, the PM would be better bringing in Ed Balls who may lack experience but at least can engage with the press and electorate. Another week spot is Tessa Jowell, her performance prior to the local elections was appaling sounding shrill whenever she was taken to task. Maybe he needs someone like Jack Straw back running a major department, he always maintained a perception of competence that the Brown government is sorely lacking.

"We are on your side! Fairness for all!"

I think you might have got that wrong.





"We are on our own side! Taxes and below inflation wage cuts for all!"

Was I think the one discussed in cabinet.

Or maybe it was:

"We aren't sure whose side we're on. Panic for all!"

Again this is a half measure by a half-wit government.

I remain cynical as to how the government have calculated that the average household will be £120 worse off.

The lower paid will still be £103 worse off, this has been calculated as follows:

10% tax band in 2007/08 - £2,230 @ 10% = £223

Taxed in 2008/09 - £2,230 @ 20% = £446

Net difference - £223 worse off - £120 (increase in personal allowance) = £103 worse off.

Once everyone has done their sums I bet, this row will rumble on!

The £120 gift is on top of what has already been given/taken by the previously announced changes.

I wonder if my calculations are correct?

Earning less than about £5,500 - no change.
Earning £5,500 to £6,600 - up to £60 better off.
Earning £6,700 to £11,400 - up to about £80 worse off.
Earning more than £11,500 to £17,300 - better off by up to £120.
Earning £17,400 - better off by £120.
E.g., average wage of £23,700 - about £250 better off.

So only those earning more than £17,400 get the full £120 gift. Those earning more are even better off this year. Some on lower incomes are still worse off this year than they were before...

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

@ drbreezy, no. 15

***"However bad Labour are, the Tories will always be a lot worse!!!!!"

What daft comment D_B_Sedna. [...] How can it possibly be worse under a younger, cleverer and fresher government?***

I'm willing to give the Tories another chance after their last disastrous tenure, but praying that they don't adopt their typical strategy of bribing the electorate with low taxes while public services are shot to pieces, thereby favouring the wealthier in this country. In that sense they would be a lot worse.

Dutchy5. #13.

I would agree with you that not a lot of people would agree with me at the moment.
However Davey lad is riding the crest of a wave for the moment but tides can and do turn. One week is a long time in politics he has a 104 of them not to make a slip up.
He has NEVER been challenged by the press or Media he has had a free ride being helped by his friends. The guy is an out and out PR man a very good salesman but as I said to another on another thread what would he do different?
None of us know, we are fed the guff that he does not wish to say until just prior to an election in case Labour pinch it.
Believe that and you will believe ought, yes labour will pinch good policies as the Tories did in the past but Dave just does not have them to pinch.
He made a pig's ear out of the Northern Rock debacle and as Simon Heffer quotes this morning he is not riding high in the polls because of anything he has done, merely because he is not Labour.
How long do you think that will last?
Cameron has started to believe his own propoganda and thinks he is now indestructable.
We will wait and see labour will ride this storm we will see how Cameron fares in the weeks ahead.
Character Assasination is all he has to offer, look for it at PMQ's and see how many policy questions he asks.

Dear Kiwilegs (poster #6),

In your defense of the PM you characterize David Cameron as both a man of straw and as a flipflopper. Perhaps he is, but surely the PM has also shown these characteristics in spades. And as for your point about PMQ’s; perhaps Cameron avoids asking questions about substance because Brown never bothers to answer the question. In such circumstances, who can blame Cameron for sticking to sound bites and character attacks? Besides according to the opinion polls [from his point of view] the strategy is working – he set out to portray Brown as a dithering, self-serving politician with little or no charisma [an exaggerated assessment I’m sure] and that’s exactly how the public now perceive him. So why should he change a winning formula?

Although we differ politically Kiwilegs, I still applaud your efforts to defend your party and the man. It can't be easy supporting the GVN right now :)

Darling was pretty useless on 'Today' this morning - and I notive Yvette Cooper is now AWOL completely - a lesson she undoubetdly picked up from the PM.

They are responding to events, not determining events - and down that road leads ruin.

'Kiwilegs' appears to have forgotten to postepend his missives with the ever familar 'All Hail the Blessed Leader'

We know who you are...

Ok, so he's rallied the troops - some might say 'too little too late' - now the real job; how to rally the electorate.

Step one: ditch all the unpopular and unnecessary 'political projects' that nobody wants (ID cards, 48hrs detention times, etc).
Stop screwing up public services with targets and let doctors and teachers manage their own affairs.
End his obsession with 'Britishness' - let the British people be free to define themselves.
Stop shouting statistics about how better things are under Labour in PMQs and answer the questions.
Pay the police (and any other group) the money they were awarded by an independent panel.
Forget about cannabis or, better still, have the courage to reform our out-of-date drug laws that criminalise a huge section of the population and benefit drug dealers and increase crime.
Reverse his policies of turning prisons into crime universities and focus on rehabilitation.
Get rid of all the 'yes men' (and women) who parrot government policy in the media and don't seem to have an individual thought in their heads.
Stop fighting wars that have no chance of succeeding and have none or little public support.
Change the culture at the Home Office so it represent the values of the British people and not a fascist dictatorship in its deportation policy.
Reverse the policy of charging people for a college education - he and his colleagues enjoyed a free university education.
Amend the smoking laws so that people can smoke in pubs if they choose to, - why not in a separate area?
Reverse the law that only allow two musicians to play in cafes and bars.
(The last two being a personal preference.)
Have I left anything out?

Basically he has two years to ditch all his policies and then present his 'vision' for where he wants to take the country.

Can he do it? I doubt it - but if he did at least we would have an alternative to a Conservative Government, who are simply benefiting from the anger and disillusionment that people are feeling towards Labour. No one knows what the Tories stand for, despite their lead in the opinion polls.

kiwilegs wrote:

kiwilegs wrote:
'However Davey lad is riding the crest of a wave for the moment but tides can and do turn. One week is a long time in politics he has a 104 of them not to make a slip up.'

GB has already in the space of a year made more slip ups than the last 3 PMs combined. Where have you been these last 12 months??

Erm...

Why does it cost 2.7bn to pay 120 pounds to 5.5 million people?

2.7bn is enough to pay 22.5 million people 120.

2.7bn is enough to pay 491 pounds to 5.5 million people.

Can anyone explain? Mr Darling?

I'm not sure if he'll be able to rally the troops, and even if he can that'd indicate the fact that the troops are just as useless as their leader.

In a warped way I sometimes feel sorry for the labour ground troops; it's hard to convince the electorate to vote for them when the leader they crowned is self-evidently a blithering idiot, with typical responses from the leader being along the lines of:

"10pct, what 10pct? I thought 10 plus 10 was zero, not 20."

"pension raids, what pension raids?"

"tax allowances, what are they? I thought we used tax credit for everything instead"

"regressive taxes? what does that mean?"

"the poor, who are they again? is that the 30-50k income bracket that we're after?"

If they think that they can put a sticking plaster on things then they're very much mistaken; it goes much deeper than that; people have seen over the last 11 years just how mind-blowingly incompetent they all are and how they constantly lie to the electorate in the most snide way possible.

I wish the speaker in the house of commons did his job; technically the speaker has the duty and the ability/right to turn round to Gordon Brown at PMQs and force him to answer the questions that he dodges so badly, and to get him to apologise for the lies he tells, and to order him out of the house when he refuses to do so. Technically Brown has broken the parliamentary rules/laws on countless occasions but he's never been called to account for it by the speaker. Not surprising really given that the speaker's on the same gravy train as Gordon.

The Tories have no real policies.

David 'call me Dave' Cameron cannot answer questions on policy because his Party doesn't have any.

Like many people, I had a difficult time under the Tories and just can't forgive them for some frankly atrocious actions that they took.

I just can't trust them, and I would rather have Brown as PM as he at least has experience of the economy.

Cameron had a part in causing the last economy collapse.

"younger, cleverer and fresher government" the Tories may be, but full of high quality policy changes they are not.

A vote for the Tories is a vote for hot air.

The thing thats hit me over the last few weeks of looking at blogs and comments is almost everybody thinks Gordon is doomed. Almost everybody now thinks the SNP can secure a referendum vote in 2010 unless Alex Salmond is found in bed with a sheep or something. Peter Hain is leading the Labour fightback in Wales so thats them gone then - particularly with the funding issues unresolved (?). Will Northern Ireland then hang about - probably not.

Therefore Nick is there something you are not telling us? Stalking horses? Party conference dates and implications? The knives must be being sharpened somewhere.

Maybe what I am missing is that there is a lack of a credible alternative. David Miliband will write nice essays and may have started shaving n'all but I doubt he is seen as viable. Straw as a caretaker a la Major?

Anyways perhaps the rest of us should start thinking about whether a lone England will have a monarchy? How do we divvy up the armed forces and the security services in these difficult times? Do we get shot of the nuclear weapons? Are there issues with the Commonwealth post disintegration? Will we have income tax evasion with Scots in England saying that they are paying tax in Scotland and vice a versa etc etc. ? How do we decide on citizenship and will it be singular or multiple etc? Will ex-Protestant terrorists leave Northern Ireland if it unites with the South and where will they go (could they be a destabilizing influence)?

We don't want to emulate Brown and the 10p tax change. Maybe we should do our thinking ahead of decisions so we can try to guide the politicians to sensible decisions.

Ah the legacies of our politicians!

The problem for Team Brown is that their man has lost the confidence not just of Labour backbenchers but the whole country.

No amount of belated huffing and puffing about Mr Bs 'big idea' will help, I'm afraid.

Moreover even if it helps steady the ranks in Parliament, around the corner will be another fiasco.

The man is doomed.

Am I the only one who thinks that borrowing £2.7 billion to keep Gordon in his job is madness???

We hear a lot about 'fairness', especially in the political context.

If we see a group of people in our society who have been unfairly treated, even if that is subsequently corrected, then we have taken note.

Why?

Because next time, the 'unfairness' may be directed at us.

That is the damage that the Government have done to themselves.

They have sowed the seed of doubt.

Kiwilegs, what planet are you on? Do you honestly belive Brown is theway you piant him to be? He's a politician, and regardless of party all politicians want to win elections and will do anything to do so. It just so happens that there is an election next week, why else would it have taken Brown/Darling so long to fix the 10p issue? It's not as if it's come as a surprise to them that many low paid people will be worse off from the change (after all their own party has been telling them for months, but have only chosen to listen 2 weeks before a by-election because it looks like they could well lose).

They have basically gone back on everything they have ever said about takation/borrowing, remember the phrase "we will only ever borrow to invest". Don't get me wrong, I think we should see more of these types of cuts and it is welcome but they should be done for economic reasons and not because Labour are scared of losing an election. This only proves how politicians are more concerned about self preservation than the country as a whole.

JohnConstable wrote:
"They have sowed the seed of doubt."

The seeds of doubt
forced Gordon out.
The winds of change
made him seem strange.
The peasant's revolt
has shot his bolt.

The huff and puff
was not enough
The man in blue
said 'Goodbye to you'.

The country said
GB is dead.
In four years time
(without reason or rhyme)
It starts all over..
- I'm heading for Dover!

I was wondering if Gordon Brown should be allowed to release the draft proposal of the Queens Speech at this time? It isn't due to formally read out by the Queen until November. Waiting a week or two wouldn't make that much difference.
I thought all policy proposals were supposed to be suspended before any elections. I say this because of all the furore when Jackie Smith released details of extra Police resources before the Council elections.
It seems to be very convenient to read this out now although it may have been planned for months. But then again, I am extremely cynical of anything this Government does now.

#10 says "Tories will always look worse".

Erm, is that possible? I suggest you do some research into the TRUE level of Government debt.

Gordon has painted himself into a corner. Inflation has been acknowledged as being higher than expected (now there's a surprise).

How long before the IMF once again knocks on the door?

Kiwilegs re: post 6
Spot on. The Sky News web blog links to "Conservative Home" and numerous other Tory sites under "Sites We Like".
There is not even a pretence at impartial news coverage. Sky News itself is no better - for television news it is breathtakingly biased. Some of their more sensible newscasters must cringe when the autocue is rolling.
The troops are being rallied. Credit to Frank Field for his response in the Commons as well. He showed some real character. I wonder if ther might be a ministerial position on offer after a summer re-shuffle?

Team Brown strikes again with another mind blowingly dull interventionist initiative.

Command and control went out with the fall of the Berlin wall in late 1989.

Command and control left 400m people behind the Iron Curtain with a standard of living barely above subsistence.

Anyone who is proposing a return to this ridiculous interventionism never paid a visit to post Ceaucescu Romania or pre Gorbachov Russia; people couldn't afford shoe leather.

Brown is finished just like command and control interventionism is dead.

Watched the PM's "Not the Queen's Speech"

Very odd delivery. Rambling, mumbling, stumbling - all at top speed. Barely coherent.

Strangely, I found myself feeling sorry for him, though I'm not sure why.

Content - most striking for a set of promises to improve or transform things Labour have been running for 11 years.

Don't know about his troops but this left me feeling more depressed than rallied

WHEN ... will the Labour Party ever learn that life is not fair? Furthermore, it's not the Government's job to spend every waking moment and every hard-earned penny of your cash and mine, trying to iron the country into a flat, featureless, fair place! I am sick to death of our politicians thinking that their job is to micro-manage every conceivable situation of our everyday lives into "fairness". It's a recipe for state-dependence, fecklessness, blaming others for one's situation and generally ensuring that our society runs into the state sandpit. I am so much looking forward to the day a politician talks about the progressive advantages of self-improvement, self-reliance, striving to be best, competitive spirit and all of the qualities that once made Britain great. Sure, the state should provide a safety net for the less able and those falling on hard times, but it must not wrap its citizens in a harness called "fairness". Let's throw off Labour's determined attempts to shackle the lot of us by throwing them out at the next election. Gordon Brown simply hasn't got a clue about what makes people tick.

Lets not forget that the reason Gordon Brown had so much room to manoeuvre at the outset of the Blair government was the excellent state that the economy was left in by the Previous Conservative Government.

Gordon Brown squandered that position to bribe Labour's way to win the 2005 General Election and we will all have to pay for it over the next ten years.

The trouble is.... As John Major discovered in the mid-late 1990's is that once the Country disovers that you and your party are full of hot air that nobody will believe Gordon, no matter what his battle cry.

Gordon has increased the tax burden of the poorest people, his core supporters, at a time when he is bailing out billionaire bankers and breaking his promises over the EU referendum.

He has been caught lying to his own side so often now, who the hell is mad enough to come rallying to his banner?

The ideas he presented to the Commons are not too bad, hardly worth rallying round, but not awful either. Unfortunately his proven record shows that he will not even be able to implement these ideas properly.

Ask people if they remember any of his proposals at the end of the month and I'll bet that most will only remember him doubling the income tax on the poor and then, reluctantly being forced into giving some of it back in the vain hope of bribing a by-election win.

deep_breath_sedna wrote:

"I just can't trust them, and I would rather have Brown as PM as he at least has experience of the economy."

Umm... This would be the man who inherited record low levels of government debt from the Major government and who now has to borrow £2.7bn to finance a tax cock up.

The words, 'economic', 'competence' and 'Brown' don't belong in the same sentence.

Kiwilegs @ number 6:

The 10p tax con has definately NOT been corrected. The rest of your comment is therfore moot as well as seriously innacurate.

Can you add up? If you still support labour after they have been kicking their core supporters whilst they are down, I suspect that you cannot add up, so I shall do the sums for you.

5 million low paid workers and pensioners were made 232 pounds per year worse off when Brown doubled the income tax on these poor worker's earnings when this tax con exploded this April

Yesterday's emergency knee-jerk "we must borrow as much money as is needed to win a by-election" panic budget only repaid the poorest 120 pounds of THEIR hard earned cash. This leaves millions of people 112 pounds a year worse off still. This at a time when labour are bailing out billionaire bankers and breaking promises of referenda.

Let me repeat the sum. 232-120=112.

For these poorest workers, 112 pounds could be up to two months food budget. Although the way inflation is taking off, under the labour disaster, it soon will only pay for one months food.

@ no. 10.

When did the tories double the income tax of millions of the poorest workers whilst cutting middle class tax by an impercaptible amount and and bailing out billionaire bankers to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds?

That deliberate and willful betrayal of their core supporters whilst cravenly sucking up to a globalist elite reveals a deliberately malignant contemptuous core at the heart of the labour leadership.

Do you really enjoy labour kicking you when you are down? As I recall in the 1990's Manufacturing was far far more productive and we had record exports and far more manufacturing jobs under the tories. We had less survialence, innocent people were treat as innocent until proven guilty, we had many many fewer taxes and stupid-self contradicting regulations to uphold.

If labour are better than the tories, how come labour inherited a golden economic legacy from the tories and the tories look to be inheriting a basket case economy from labour?

@21

"I'm willing to give the Tories another chance after their last disastrous tenure, but praying that they don't adopt their typical strategy of bribing the electorate with low taxes while public services are shot to pieces, thereby favouring the wealthier in this country. In that sense they would be a lot worse."

Well I had thought that if taxes went up to pay for improved public services then that may be a price worth paying. Unfortunately labour have run rampant with the tax grabbing and have no clue how to spend effectively.

The result is public services no better than before and in some cases significantly worse, whilst tax bills soar through the roof!

Give me the tight fisted tories who may let me decide how to spend my own money, over labour taking it out of my pocket to waste it and then attempt to disgracefully bribe me with it. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how I should be grateful for labour trying to bribe me with MY OWN MONEY!

"I just can't trust them, and I would rather have Brown as PM as he at least has experience of the economy."

No that should read, "at least has experience of ruining an economy"

More likely to be Brown's Caporetto.

Talking of 'dispirited troops', Nick, has Mr B just fallen for another own goal?

It appears that the 'Margaret Mccabe' who supposely emailed the PM inviting him to appear on TV doesn't work for the BBC or any of its commissioned programme makers. Does she, in fact, exist? Or has the PM, Hazel Blears and Co been conned? Have they managed to get all excited about saving Gordon's reputation for nothing?

I think we should know, and you are the man to find out.

47# purpledoggz

You along with Cameron et-al and quite a few Tories are wrong about that.
Most people have been Compensated not all as Brown and Darling have said.
What your idol Cammie's take on what he would do?
As for the sums you do not need to do them for me but you can answer some questions.

When was there ever a 10 p rate under the Tories?
Has Cameron agreed to re-instate it?
When was it last at 20p?
Did Cameron support the minumum wage?
Did he support the tax credits?
Did he support the fuel allowances to the pensioners?
Did he support free bus travel?
Did he support maternity allowances?
What has he got to say about what will happen if the hospitals spend their yerarly allowances.
Now lets see if you can put your money where your mouth is and answer just a few if yiou can.
One word of warning I know the answer to these things so be sure of your ground before you reply!

Interesting to hear the Conservatives who were so convincing at feigning concern for the low paid. are now protesting about Labour buying votes with borrowing, even though they wanted so desperately for low paid to be helped. Since the theme seems to be historical battles, How many times have the tories borrowed for tax cuts? I seem to remember that it has happened. But it wasn't out of concern for low paid workers. Some people amusingly call it gerrymandering. Wasn't the last gerrymandering case dame shirley porter a conservative, who gave cash incentives for council tennants to move somewhere else and sold the flats?

Anyone who has any sense knows that as the conservatives are against the minimum wage, the 48hr working time directive. so they want the low paid to work longer hours for a smaller hourly wage. Which makes a mockery of the party of family values claim and fathers instilling respect to their children. They wouldn't have the time. Conservatives stand for protecting the wealthy anything else is just PR.

I've often thought that terms such as lower, working and upper class are singularly unhelpful of the social cohesion that most English people want.

It has occurred to me today, reading these blog entries, just how much this 'tiered' tax system goes towards perpetuating that outmoded 'class' distinction.

Read them yourself and see how often the 10% rate is associated with 'lower-paid' (by implication, lower class) people and the 40% band with 'middle/upper class' people.

A nominally socialist Government in particular, should, on the face of it, be keen to move towards a single tax rate system, in overall terms of trying to create a 'fairer' society.

I literally signed up just to post this!

This is pure political manoeuvreing - the 10p tax rate has not been 'fixed' but yet another short term solution (that causes more problems in the long term) has been created. This upping of the tax relief scheme in only in place for one year and reminds me a little of a place where I once worked where the bosses always ummed and errred over whether to let their staff have Christmas week off or not, telling everyone to keep a week in hand just in case they wanted you to use that instead - they want you to live in the same short term mindset living for the moment because if you aren't worried about what happens next month or next year you'll start noticing a lot more of their flawed policies in other areas.

It is pure prevarication of a government not wanting to do anything but being forced into making some concessions that they can easily renege on once they have served their political purpose (like the introduction of the 10p starter rate has turned out to be!)

Interesting to note from the Paxman interview with Darling on Newsnight yesterday evening that the one group of people who haven't had their tax fiddled with were the non-doms - you don't want to do anything to upset them, eh?

It also seems typical of the government's contempt for those they govern that whenever they make changes that they then have to U-turn on they always seem to do it in such a manner that it (a) doesn't solve the problem at all, in fact just makes them worse, and (b) allows them to get away with not only not making an apology but with giving those who had the temerity to complain another kicking!

Anyway this whole 10p tax thing has been interesting in one respect - I never realised that I was a member of the working/under class until now!

Sorry Nick, "Scrapping" is as bad as "abolishing". The rate was "doubled". Keep trying old son, you'll get there in the end.

re post 54:
The reason I didn't like the idea of borrowing more was simple economics/maths; if they wanted to they could have given the full amount back to the low-paid instead of only half of it, and given a reduction (perhaps from 22% to 21% instead of to 20%) on the first rate band, adjusted the thresholds/allowances a bit, and thereby kept everybody happy and actually save the tax payer money compared to the original budget. Essentially they've totally blown 2.7 billion on a one-year/one-off bodge.

So, if they really wanted they could have reimbursed the full cost of the 10% doubling to the poor, while also applying that rebate to everyone else too, and still not borrow more money (they could have actually saved money). It's just a question of mathematics; they didn't think about it properly so ended up with half a rebate that costs massively more than it should do and which still hits the poorest in favour of people earning more.

The tories have borrowed to finance tax cuts in the past, sometimes for purely political reasons (very bad; I agree with you on that point), but sometimes to stimulate growth (very good; it ends up paying for itself and then some)

History's repeating itself all over again; we're in the same situation now as we were in the late 70's (perhaps even worse) with a massively overblown state and no growth and huge government debt.

What I hope (I'm on your side on this one) is that if the tories do get in at the general election, they don't revert to some of the things they used to do, and that they use generally fairer ways of organising the system so that it's less regressive and more progressive on the tax front (ie the poorer you are the less you pay in tax as a proportion of your income)

The core question at the general election will be a straight-forward one:

Do you trust a labour government who's been incompetent the last 11 years and ruined the economy, or do you trust/risk a tory government who might revert to type with no warning?

Now that's a difficult question to answer for a lot of people, including me.

At the moment I'm more on the side of "I think I'd risk a tory government rather than a proven failure of labour", but that might change depending on how they each do over the next 2 years; whichever one you choose it's a risk.

If Gordon Brown relaxed a bit, and learned the value of giving a straight question to a straight answer, he would do much better. Even when he was more popular, he would tend to thump home a series of pre-rehearsed bullet points, rather than answer any question as posed. That approach just doesn't work, and it works even less when used by more junior cabinet members.

Unless he can relax a bit more in public, he should never try to smile. His forced leer is a grisly sight indeed.

Unfortunately he is also facing the fact that, having been conspicuously unsupportive of the PM during the Blair years, he is now in a very bad position to demand support from people he badly needs as supporters. I feel a bit sorry for him, but he largely created the situation he is in.

Hi Kiwilegs,

I’ll answer your questions

When was there ever a 10p rate under the Tories? No but there isn’t one under Labour now either ? So as a voter why should I give you credit for something that you have just abolished.

Has Cameron agreed to re-instate it? No, but then nor has Gordon.

When was it last at 20p? Haven’t a clue but a long time ago. However, what Gordon giveth with one hand he takes away with another. For instance, my Council Tax has nearly doubled under a Labour GVN; of course you could blame my local LABOUR council. Then there are the other hidden stealth taxes, the repeated failure to raise personal thresholds in line with inflation etc…. Like most people, I understand that the overall tax burden has increased under this GVN; I feel it in my wallet every day! And don’t forget, by steadily increasing indirect as opposed to direct taxes, Gordon has diluted the whole idea of tax as means to redistribute wealth.

Did Cameron support the minumum wage? No – but he does now.

Did he support the tax credits? No – but then the system is overly complicated, open to fraud and involuntary over-payments and the take up rate is lower than it should be i.e. it needs urgent reform. After all, how many hard working families are not in debt thanks to this system?

Did he support the fuel allowances to the pensioners? Probably not, but he does now. Good job too – since the price of Gas and electricity [and food for that matter] keeps on climbing at an alarming rate. Do you believe the official inflation rate? You know the one Gordon uses to determine public sector and benefit payment pay rises?

Did he support free bus travel? Probably not, but he does now. Boris has just announced that I will be able to use my ouster card an overland rail services soon…. That saves me some hassle. Why couldn’t ken get the rail companies to agree to this?

Did he support maternity allowances? Not sure, but he now wants to extend paternity and maternity rights.

What has he got to say about what will happen if the hospitals spend their yearly allowances? I don’t know but then I don’t know about the GVN’ position on this either. Mind you, considering that the GVN has nearly doubled the NHS budget, you’d have thought that a well managed health service wouldn’t have any hospitals in the red. Now let’s see who’s been in charge of the NHS for the last ten years….?

You see as a former Labour party supporter Kiwilegs I’m very, very disillusioned. I don’t expect the Conservatives to look out for me, but I did expect this GVN to help and there’s nothing as corrosive as a sense of betrayal. I can still remember the Labour backbenchers cheering Gordon’s scrapping of the 10p rate…. Remember they cheered, and why did he scrap the 10p rate in the first place? He wanted to pose as a tax-cutter to middle England, to wrong foot the Tories. He didn’t seem to mind, that this move would hurt people like me – ordinary Labour voters – and according to Nick Robinson on his trip to the States only last month, he was denying that anybody would lose out. That means he is incompetent, a liar or an opportunist, who put his personal ambition above the needs of the poor. The only reason for the U-Turn is because he has been found out and I for one will not be voting Labour whilst he is PM.

Anyway nice talking to you Kiwilegs – good luck on the stump, because a former Labour heartlands supporter, I can tell you, you’re going to need it.

NuLabour thrashing around in the undergrowth trying deserately to salvage their tattered reputations as the economy and their own fumblings tear them apart.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of tired old class warriors.

Re. #53

It doesn't matter if Cameron doesn't support the Tax Credits regime that Brown has imposed on us as most people would agree that they've a complete disaster.

Yes, it's released more money to people but at what cost? Complex forms to fill in for a means tested benefit, confusing guidance and help from HMRC - let alone the number of mistakes made and the impact on families as HMRC immediately suspend all Credits and try to claim back overpayments that they themselves have caused (most of the time ignoring earlier advice from the affected families that have already worked this out).

A better option would have been a simpler tax regime so that no one has to claim anything and the difference is seen in the wage packet. We've had tax codes and different levels of tax for how long now? Why did Brown think it would be better to create yet more bureaucracy when simplification would have been much better?

I just wonder, as someone not entitled to any, just how much lower the average tax rate would be if you included tax credits in the calculations.

ngodinhdiem. #60
I am sorry you feel as you do but allow me a little leaway.
I notice it took a former Labour person to answer the questions, I am a bit disappointed about that but hey that's life.
I ask you to reconsider I can never take the horror of what my family and others lived through under the Thatcher/Major years.
I feel that once, if ever elected Cameron will resort right back to Tory habits. I do not trust the man.
After 10 years of any government they all become a bit stale.
Do not take what is happening from the last three motns into consideration for a moment but please look at these facts and debate with me if you find my analysis wrong I would welcome that.
People have had waiting lists come down, we have had full employment, take a note at the number of nice cars on your street, when did you last send a child to any state school that had a leaking roof?
how many schoolkids have to share lesson books?
how many are working for 80p per hour?
Now this is just scratching the surface. The Tories opposed every move now they tell us they will do the same ,but do it better.
Yes I get disillusioned with labour at times.
I could have kicked Brown's teeth down his throat with this 10p fiasco but the guy held his hand up,I agree he had no other option but to my way of thinking that was the correct think to do.
Just prior to the last election when the Tories were in power can I remind you about "they had no intentions of putting VAT on fuel" after they won that what happened? and when did they ever apologise for that or anything else?
It takes courage to stand and admit when one is wrong.
How many things in the last two years has Cam the Sham been wrong about and when did he ever apologise for it?
He has done a complete 90% on everything he believed in during the 2005 election as soon as elected he decided to fight on things that people wanted to hear even it it was not the correct thing to do.
I do not call that honourable do you?
He will not stop either just continue to use a personalised character assassination on Brown aided and abetted by his pals in the press and media.

Why do people keep saying tax is 20% Don't forget National Insurance, which for most people is now 11% under Labour and also applies to a much greater proportion of salary than 1999.

So realistically basic rate tax is 31%

https://www.hmcr.eu/rates/nic.htm

How apt Nick Robinson can remeber the War of Jenkin's ear but doesn't seem to recall the sight of Norman Lamont walking out with David Cameron in tow after they had tried to deal with not a run on a small bank, but actually a run on the pound. The last ten years have been great, low levels of inflation more importantly low levels of mortgage interest rates, I've been able to pay off mortgage and retire eight years early. All power to Gordon, we have a slight hiccup not caused by the government, but by greedy bankers who decided to gamble. But there again that must be right as surely it is market lead and the market is all important according to some?

murrayofhook -

Don't forget Council TAX, (mine is £111 a month)

Value Added TAX

and all the others.. it's probably nearer 40% if not more.

Meanwhile ministers and ex-ministers are getting paid a fortune for bugger all.

Nick,
I thought that vote rigging and bribery for votes were both a thing of the distance past unless you live in Africa that is. Today however Gordon Brown brought them both back to life, it is obvious by what his chancellor anounced yesterday and what he said in Parliment today that they are looking to sway the votes of Crewe into not voting them out of there. I look forward to hearing the returning officer a week on Thursday when he anounces that a Tory is being returned as the member of parliment for crewe. I hope the people of Great Britain can see throght the smoke screen that this labour government is trying to create.

Is Kiwilegs a zen buddhist reincarnation of Chuck E. Hogwash?

How anyone in their right mind can defend - let alone vote for - New Labour amazes me.

Sceptic Max, I am an elderly lady. Can you explain why I would be out of my mind defending Labour.
You remind me of your leader, he cannot hold his own in an argument either, he also resorts to insult.
Now either put up a point to debate or retract.
The cowards way is easy to some, lets see if you can rise above it.

Gordon Brown started, ironically, to perform better today - that or Cameron really performed badly today. Bad timing as he could have done with a much better start last year.

# 37

Lovely poem - but not quite up to 'Joan Hunter Dunn' standard.

# 64

Don't forget the Employers 12.8% - I'm sure they would much rather give it to the people directly involved in their business than the Government.

Overall, I'm reasonably happy that politically we English will soon get our country back.

No thanks to us English though - we're too apethetic about politics.

I have been involved via the Web with Scottish people who live at home in Scotland and I can tell English people that these Scots are very, very active politically - they have the bit between their teeth now the SNP is in charge - and nothing is going to stop them getting their independence.

Which means that we English are going to find ourselves more-or-less independent ourselves in the not-too-distant future.

Hopefully then English people can start to get some spirit back ourselves.

Hey, we can dump that gawd-awful dirge of a 'national anthem' for starters.

Gordon managed to sell the Nations gold at the bottom of the market, costing the taxpayer billions.

He has today announced that he will spend 200 million pounds of taxpayers money buying unwanted new homes from builders - the day after his Housing Minister advised him in cabinet that House prices will fall by 5 to 10% this year as a minimum adding "we can’t know how bad it will get".

Now of course this won't matter so much if he can find some gullible first time buyers to share the risk with.

Of course the alternative would be that builders could reduce the prices until there were willing buyers. But no doubt the builders will be pleased with the taxpayers largesse and that money could be found to bail them out.

Re 58: getridofgordon wrote
"At the moment I'm more on the side of "I think I'd risk a tory government rather than a proven failure of labour", but that might change depending on how they each do over the next 2 years; whichever one you choose it's a risk."

Unfortunately my choice is made for me as I live in a safe labour seat as far as national government is concerned. So my vote doesn't count. Yes I am in favour of PR (proportional representation not public relations). I happen to think that politics for most of my lifetime has been an absolute disaster. Both Labour and Conservative have been awful. From the industrial unrest in the 1970s to the class warfare leading to industrial unrest and unemployment of the 80s and early 1990s. To 'That sort of Bluey Redness that people thought was Ok' of the NEW IMPROVED Labour party and now media celebrity obsession of politics we have now. I am living in the hope that the liberal democrats can do something. Vince Cable is very good. I know its a bit like playing the lottery. What else can I do when politics in this country is so hopeless?

Selling our gold reserves at the wrong price, the 10p tax fiasco, soaring council taxes, soaring fuel tax, road charging, inflation, HIPS (a tax on home owners), inheritance tax, tax on rubbish collection, discrimination against singles with no children, discrimination against England, surveillance Britain, powers to snoop given to local authorities, ID cards, extended detention without trial, broken promise on Euro constitution referendum, withholding drugs from people with Alzheimer's

Gordon... you’re fired!

Nick
I don't know if the War of Jenkins Ear is a good analogy, I seem to think that Pasiondale in the WW1 is closer to the truth and Gordon Brown is no a Canadian.

At the Press Conference ask "his nibs" about the current forecast borrowing requirement, rising inflation and unemployment and how much longer he is going to prevaricate in putting the £35bn of "off balance sheet assets" called PFI debt onto the books.

The Private Eye similarity with Mussolini's road building is well worth a read (if only in "Smiths library")

egrid1@72#
Only someone very young or extremely politically naive could make the gold stateman.
Allow me to indulge you with the facts of why this gold was sold.
On coming to power in 1997 this Country's Hospitals Schools Infrastructure etc was in such a terrible state of disrepair that billions had to be spent trying to salvage them
They were allowed to go into neglect because Thatcher in her wisdom decided the rich needed tax cuts to follow her top down economic policies.
The poor could either go on the dole or work for 80 p. per hour if one could find a job.
She sold off our National Silver (The utilities) Gas, water ,electricity for fire sale prices. The all all in the hands of foreign owners now.
We were not left with such a Golden economy as the Tories pretend we were.
In fact so much so the Lametable Norman Lamont stood on the Street and quoted that unemployment was a price worth paying.
Now the Question I pose to you is this.
If you are male would you keep money in the bank and go about with your backside hanging out of your britches or would you buy trousers?
Or if a lady would you neglect your needs to keep money in the bank?
The Services in this country has cost billions to be put right and tax payers money plus PPP have helped to achieve that.
Yes Brown did sell the Gold but that no where near matches what Thatcher sold.
He done that for the benefit of us all, Thatcher done it for her stockbroker friends.
There is the world of difference between both set of actions.
Now argue with that if you can.

Do Kiwis bury their heads in the sand like ostriches or do they put them somewhere else? I do have my own thoughts.

This government has be great at raising money and poor on delivery. The people who have prospered are the Management Consultants and the PFI companies (debt £35bn off the book assets) who have skinned the taxpayers.
Brown today said that inflation is low, he is talking rubbish, it's been higher during the last 18months than at any time since 1992 on the historic and accurate RPI measure. Gordon Brown has been chancellor during a period of low worldwide inflation and took over an economy with sustained low inflation but claimed the credit for inflation and growth and is now trying to shift the blaim for the results of his stewardship. It does not wash.

An MP raised a point of order yesterday regading the supply of GB's statement on the 10p tax to the opposition (DC). Normally this is done 45 mins before the statement is made. the point of order was raised because this did not happen yet, the compensation package is apparently on labour hand outs being passed out in Crew and Nantwich prior to the announcement?
If this is correct and the information was on Nu Labour 'hand outs' in Crewe and Nantwich then this is a blatant disregard of the rules or customs of the house solely for party political purposes. This is a disgrace and yet another nail (if they needed any more) in this governments coffin.

The speaker is investigating (so obviously the government will be cleared) but I think we should be told Nick don't you?
Kind Regards
Baron VonRipWinkle

Skynine#77
Who has their head buried in the sand.
The ordinary man and woman of this country has benefitted from money spent.
What is the average length now of hospital waiting list?
How many people are now dying waiting to even get on a list?
How many new primary schools have there been built?
How many new Hospitals?
Can you please show the figures of the number of New Hospital and School build there was under the 18 years of Tory rule and the figure we have under the last past 10 years of Labour?
At the same time can you please publish the same sets of figures for Doctors Nurses police etc?
Answer on the back of a postage stamp please.

I have yet to hear NR make any sort of a positive statement about Labour Party policy. The punch line seems to be more important than reporting. Bring back Andrew Marr and thank heavens for The now show and the News quizz to set the record srtraight!

If Michael Martin is investigating the "hand out's" being passed out in Nantwich and Crewe prior to the announcement, then you can be sure that absolutely nothing will happen.

Kiwilegs (#76)

You say to Egrid1 (#72) "only someone very young or extremely politically naive" for raising the issue of Brown selling our gold reserves at the wrong price.

Just for info, I made the same point about Brown in my earlier post (#74).

Dumping a huge amount of gold in that way inevitably pushed the price down - which also reduced the value of the gold still in our reserves. At the time, the loss was thought to be about £2 billion.

Taking into account the later rise in the market, Robert Preston of the BBC puts the loss to the taxpayer at about £9 billion.

See blog: Preston's Picks, Gold and Gordon Brown, 4 March 2008.

The actual loss depends on how you do the calculation - but it is clear that this was an act of foolish short-termism (as many thought at the time)

Gordon is finished and his legacy will be that he is the worst chancellor this country has ever had

So Speaker Martin's wife is let off for her outrageous spending of 1000s of pounsd on taxis, and then he gets to head up the inquiry into whether or not GB has broken parliamentary rules by making policy anouncements during a by-election, and not providing copies of statemenst to the opposition in advance

Well, let's guess how that one will pan out, shall we?

The thing I hate most about this duplicitous deceitful damaging government is that way that I now see conspiracy and dodgy-dealing in everything they do. I hate being made to become this cynical

Oh, and did anyone notice that GB referred to Vince Cable as the shadow chancellor yesterday? He really has lost the plot, hasn't he!

#57 Kiwilegs what a breath of fresh air you are I've been reading down the threads this morning and I have agreed with every thing that you have said they are excactly what I would have said myself but without such elequence, as you said yesterday confront tories with the facts and you either get insults and then they run away or they just run away their only interested in the few mistakes that labour have made and to be fair every government makes mistakes although not on the scale of the Thatcher/Major years, they are not in the slightest bit interested in the good things labour has done. To many to list here but you have mentioned quite a few but have recieved the old Tory mantra. Doctorbreezy thinks we would do better under a younger cleverer fresher government and of course he could be right but if he considers the Tories to be that Government then he' suffering delusions, we know that Camerons been around since the debacle with Lamont, not sure where Osbourne came from but we have Hague, failed leader. Francis Maud, David Willets, Andrew Lansley, Liam Fox, David Davis. since they were all in the last Tory government they could hardly be discribed as fresh clever or young, so perhaps he meant the liberal party, well we dont really want to go there. of course then we have the highly intelligent Sceptic max who thinks that approximately half the country are out of their mind and of course he isn't.I have to remind you of one point that you failed to mention, the scrabble to sell with disastrous results british rail, that item alone did more damage to the british people than ever Labour has done.

Chrisboote.

The arrogant Michael Martin probably thought it outrageous that his wife should travel anywhere by anything less than a cab, and that we should pay for it via his parliamentary expenses.

The problem is, that the system was put into place by MP's; the very people who abuse it, and we are going to have the devil's own job to take it away from them.

Kiwilegs @69, nice to meet you. Sorry to be ungallant, but I should point out that being an elderly lady is no excuse. Elderly ladies can also be deluded - it is not a phenomenon limited to youth.

Firstly, I have no leader. I'm a Marxist in the sense that I would not join any party that would have me as a member. Secondly, socialism is bad. So voting for a socialist party is bad, too. Voting for a 'sham' socialist party like Nu Labour is even worse.

Now, let's get down to Brass tacks: New Labour are washed out. Let's look at their founding fathers:

Blair was a skillful charlatan who didn't much mind which party he led so long as he lead a party (If he had not married the ghastly Cherie it is not unconceivable that he would have been a Tory leader).

[To be continued in a seperate post. I tried to post the whole thing yesterday and it didn't get through. Maybe it's too long]

To Kiwilegs @69 - part 3

In all areas their policies are a shambles: Iraq, defense, the economy, industry, UK relations with the EU (what happened to our Referendum?), law and order, immigration, pensions (Thanks again Gordon. Kiwilegs - as an 'elderly lady' how do you feel about Brown's raid on your pension fund?), education....

Remember TB's cry of 1997: 'Education, education, education'? Yeah, right. Look out at the country around you: are the youth of today better educated? Better behaved? Better than your generation?

I could go on ad nauseum, Nu Labour reached that point long ago.

Their policies would poor in theory and ruinous in practice. The chickens have come home to roost. We are sick of them. It's well past time for a change. Even dedicated Labour supporters know this 'in their water'.

While I'm not a Tory (they're not radical enough for me) I'd happily support them as a viable alternative to this shambles.

And, in conclusion, the evidence of New Labour's shambles lies all around us for all to see. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that anyone that supports - or even defends - New Labour must be either willfully blinkered or mentally deficient not to see this evidence for what it is.

grandantidote many thanks.

There have been so many Tory cock-ups it would have probably taken me a bit longer to get get around to British Rail, I have so many at my finger tips to choose from.
I think you have hit the nail on the head.
There are a lot of Labour people who can take these Tory minnows on they just will not get up and fight.
I have found I get the debating students first who hang onto to Cameron everyword, they are easy to spot they usually go on about tractor production, trolls and GB selling off the Gold.
BTW a journalist asked the PM that question today.
The next time the next Tory buffoon mentions that I will refer them to the PM answer to a journalist who ought to have had more sense.
The PM gave the journalist a very polite answer, I would have been embarrassed to be so ill educated to have asked the question in the first place. The level of Journalitic intelligence has certainly dipped in this Country.
The next Tory I usually get taking me on is the clever clogs type.
Now I really love toying with them and placing them through the mangle.
None of them seem to wish to debate with me after a second go.
I believe in this Labour Government and I will fight like hell to keep them in power and there is no Tory upstart going to distract me from that.

Distant traveller 82 #
I refer you to my reply re-the gold that the PM gave to the journalist this morning.
Brown was chancellor not Preston and in a much better position to evaluate it and so far in the last ten years he has not made a bad fist of running the economy.
WE are ALL a damn side better off than we were 10 years ago.
BTW how do you or Preston square the circle with Thatcher selling off the utilities and the people that benefitted from the procedes of her top down economics or Reganomics whom she copied it from?

Kiwilegs @69 - part 2a

Brown was an awful Chancellor. The idea of him as a prudent Iron Chancellor is a myth. He only ever did two sensible things:
a) promise to follow Tory spending plans for his first two budgets.
b) grant independence to the Bank of England.
Everything else he has touch has turned to dust (or will). He has (amongst a virtually endless list of economic sins) inflated the public sector by creating hundreds of thousands of non-jobs; reduced unemployment by calling them disability benefits recipients; sold our gold when the price hit rock bottom; introduced hundreds of stealth taxes; created financial uncertainty in our financial sector by dithering over Capital Gains Tax, non-doms, Northern Rock, etc. He claims credit for everythingm, but blame for nothing (The world's economy seems to be responsible only for the 'bad times'. The 'good times' are all due to Gordon's genius...).
The nicest thing one can say about him is that he is psychologically flawed. (Just look at his finger nails: Is that the behaviour of a rational person or a tormented, unstable soul?).

Sceptic Max 91.

He was such a bad Chancellor that we have the highest employment on record.
More people own their own homes than ever before.
3 million children have been taken out of poverty.
He introduced the minimum wage
more Doctors, Nurses Police, Hospital waiting lists down.
More hospitals and Schools built over the last 10 years than all of the 18 years under Thatcher and Major.
OAP given a winter fuel allowance.
Pensions to be linked once again to earnings.
free TV licences to the over 75 years old.
Free bus passes for the elderly.
Please list the achievements of the last Tory Government do not forget to include the Poll tax will you,where dustbin men paid the same ammount in tax as Dukes and Duchesses.
But since the Tories were so great and Brown so bad in you considered opinion.
Please tell me the way that Cam the Sham is going to improve all of our lives.
I await in eager anticipation.
While you are at it can you tell me how allowing a hospital that runs out of cash to go into liquidation is going to improve the health of perhaps yourself, your spouse your Mother or Father if you are ever in need and your local hospital runs out of cash?
Keep healthy under a future Tory Government or take out private insurance.

Re kiwilegs

Stiff upper lip old girl when reality of the situation fails to support your view, a good old wikipedia rant will do

Your argument while valid at the time has no relevance to your average Joe Blogs in 2008.

Try thinking what is happening to others rather than just yourself.

When my old mum 64 with chronic arthritis is so afraid to heat her home in winter and sits with candle light due to fuel cost - (you have to ask what’s going on here)

When her fuel company ask her for a extra 420 pounds this last 6 months alone - (you have to ask what’s going on here)

When she is worried about food costs - (you have to ask what’s going on here)

She is disabled but owns her own car – but she worried about fuelling up. (you have to ask what’s going on here)

Or is worried how much the council tax will rise (you have to ask what’s going on here)

Or loosing 207 pounds on her private pension because of the 10p, and then adding insult to injury GB gives back 120 of borrowed money. (you have to ask what’s going on here)

Worried about getting dental treatment she as she need it due to her condition - (you have to ask what’s going on here)

More than anything she is a mum, and as such she is worried about what kind of country the UK is becoming for her sons future.

That’s just some of the issues my mum has with labour, I will not go into my own well founded gripes the web page isn’t long enough

Fact of the matter is I cannot afford labour neither can my mum just like many others.

I will fight like you, But in my case it will be to kick labour so far into the wilderness it take another 15 years for them to find their way back.

And I will help pay for the bubbly at the local conservative club when Cameron kicks brown out of No 10 (that’s if his own backbenchers don’t do it first).

EX Labour supporter.

Sceptic Max 87
I make no apology for my age.
My age means I have lived through the good times as well as the bad and learned from the best tutor one can ever had it is called experience.
One cannot buy it, however it is best to learn from the mistakes of others rather than one's own.
18 years under Tory government and I learned the hard way and I would never vote to repeat that dreadful experience.

Kkiwilegs if you really are an old lady which I very much doubt then you have learnt very little in your many years. I suggest you go to specsavers and swap your Gordon Brown registered rose tinted glasses for a more expensive decent pair!!

Katamochi. #93

Your poor Mum allow me to cheer both you and her up.
William Hague when leader tried to ban the winter fuel allowance.
Cameron when asked whether he would keep it gave no concrete answer.
Hague said he would definately do away with the £10 bonus
He thought it would be better to consolidate it into a pension.
Candlelight please pull the other.
Her fuel Company was sold by Thatcher to give tax rebates to the rich as the markets could look after itself.
Is Dave going to bring it back under Nationalisation to keep prices down and who closed the mines, the cheapest deep mining energy in the EU?
Meals on wheels are an extremely cheap and nourishing alternative and at 64 years she is eligible.
Vegetables are coming into season and pearl barley is still cheap and all make a good and nourishing pan of soup.
I think you need to look into her pension I am sure she is not claiming all she is due.
Dental treatment if she is claiming all she has a right to she is entitled to help with the dentist if she is in such dire straits.
I have not got a lot to leave my sons I only hope I leave them some of my backbone.
I hope I have brought them up well enough to make their own way in this world and I set them free from my apron strings donkey's years ago.
I will not worry about them they are big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves, or so I tell them.
Gordon Brown has no control whatsoever at the price of a barrel of oil.
He stated today that he never imagined the price of a barrel of oil would be where it is today.
Blame the OPEC Contries not the man.
Have a nice time under Mr Cameron after all he needs people like you and your Mum to support his stockbroker Father with tax rebates.
BTW the only tax promise Cameron has ever made was made to the Millionaires in Inheritance Tax.
Have a nice life supporting them dear they need all the help they can get.

Thank you dutchy5.

I keep looking in the mirror and telling myself that self same thing.
The only problem is the mind is very active the body does not repond the same.
Im have come to the conclusion with my limbs that if the damn things do not hurt they do now work

Now I'm really getting angry. I was recently heavily penalised having received a moderate Inheritance. My parents were not millionaires but decent hard working people. For the record Gordon Brown has squandered billions of our money and now has nothing left for hard times. Nu Labour inherited a good position and ruined it! Stop going on about the distant past. We the people are more concerned about the mistaskes made in the recent past and the mess we are in at present as a result!!

Oh dear oh dear. The trouble with historical revisionists is that they tend to constantly trip over themselves because they are so narrowly focused. Kiwilegs has made a valiant attempt to defend the Government's position - even so far as saying that it can't control the price of oil, without mentioning that most of the price of petrol is made up of Government taxes - but hey, don't let some facts get in the way. let's "move on". In any event, is there really any point in quoting statistics anymore? We have a Government that's run by a split personality - part Frank Spencer and part Comical Ali. One half makes the mistakes and the other tries to cover them up. Let's just imagine for one awful moment that Thatcher did not succeed Jim Callaghan. In short order we would have had, as was commonly known, the implementation of a Labour manifesto that was so chronically bad that it was dubbed the longest suicide note in history. Strike-ridden nationalised industries, 83% "top" rate of tax with the possibility of it extending to 98% with investment income surchage (ie interest on savings or dividends). Bailouts from the IMF and an inflation and base rate so high you could use them for choosing lottery numbers above 20. Great. Fantastic. Without Thatcher and Major the likelihood of a Tony Blair emerging would be unfathomable. Prime Minister Prescott?! Hysterical! Kinnock? His solution to a Soviet invasion - which was still a realistic possibility until the influence of Thatcher neutered the problem, along with Reagan - was for us all to head to the hills. The structural changes to British industry in the Tory years - even after two world-wide recessions (yes, they were world-wide, even France was affected after holding off for a while after benefitting from German reunification) - bequeathed a falling inflation, falling unemployment, falling taxes, falling interest rate and growing economy to Gordon, who avoided giving any ideas as to his tax and spend plans until after polling day when he adopted Ken Clark's Tory budget, as well as adopting the idea of an independent Bank of England that had been doing the rounds in the Tory Government , adopting PFI which was just emerging in the Tory government for public investment, and of course his own idea of staging a smash and grab on our pension schemes, thus ruining them forever. He even abolished mortgage interest rate relief, ie after smirking at Clarke's discomfort when he failed to promise what he would do to it. The problem that Gordon now faces is that we can't really believe in him. That's what he has got to overcome.

kiwilegs (96)

To answer your question don’t call me a liar - she did because she panicked (foolish yes but ppl who are worried do daft things)

Ps. I am willing to back what I say up if I have to.

And I bet you everything I own she wasn’t the only one that did something equally as daft.

Her pension - let me see we looked at tax credits zippo because my farther is 74 and on state pension - marriage person allowance abolished under labour.

Extra help no again because she cannot claim state pension due to her private pension.

Don’t patronise me about meals on wheels, you may think its ok, but for an independent women like my mum she don’t want or need that help yet.

Dentist last one in our village went private 2 years ago nearest one is over 11 miles away.

For someone with chronic arthritis that is a long way.

I care about my mum she looked after me as a kid - she taught me how to survive and independence.

I owe her everything I am, and if she needs help I am there as any good son should be even if she wants help or not.

As for Cameron your very obvious blind hatred clouds your judgment and ability to convince ppl of your point of view.

To debate you have to have an open mind and be willing to compromise - you cannot do that from your posts.

A debate is not a debate when it is one sided.

I would like to see you argue without going a decade into past simply based on the events of the 12 months, I personally don’t believe you can.

Lets try.

1) Explain without jumping into the past why garden brown remove the 10p bracket without knowing the impact.

Personally I can only see two possibilities.

a) He knew, lied and didn’t care about the consequences.

b) He didn’t know which means he is short sighted and unaware of what is happening around him.

Can you give me a third possibility without drawing on the past - simply based on these years events?

(Ps. don’t use the economy next year is unknown)

Oil prices?
Labour has had years to sort it out, they should have put money away to offset the prices like America has, cold truth is the uk is in such dept due to browns policies there is no room to manoeuvre.

As for Cameron -

I don’t blame him for keeping his policies to himself every time he comes up with an idea labour pinches it.