Rebel tactics

All of this in-fighting is futile: there's only one thing that can save Labour now.

Gordon Brown could survive to win the next election if Argentina launched an attack on Port Stanley, and if we sailed a task force down there, sunk a few ships and chucked them out.

If Gordon stood on a tank and waved a union jack, we'd all cheer and throw votes at him. Apart from that chance, it's curtains for Labour at the next election, so they might as get used to it.

Thing is Nick these things have a way of escalating. Like an iceberg. Not much to see above water but plenty down below. Give it time. There's plenty more misery out there in the party to surface yet.

I just think it's a shame that the great British public can't throw out such a useless waste of space as easily!

The only possible way the Liebore party can salvage anything resembling dignity is to call an immediate general election - this way they'll at least demonstrate that they are "listening" to the electorate, as they often like to trumpet.

All these inner-party playground tactics just show them all up for being the overgrown schoolkids that they are. The only consolation we have is that they'll only serve to make Liebore unelectable for even longer once they finally get kicked out of Westminster, assuming there's even a country left to run once they've finished with us.

It must be getting very crowded, hot and sticky in the bunker these days. Not long to go before it implodes!

#1

I'm sure the idea of orchestrating another conflict to appeal to people's patriotism has already been brought up at the Spin Doctor HQ - I guess in this respect we should be thankful that they've already managed to bankrupt us by now otherwise it would probably already have been done.

I thought President Bush was bad.
Anybody but him, I though to myself.

Then arrrived Prime Minister Brown.
I thought Brown was terrible.
Please, anybody but him.
Tough on us Brits.

Now to put in into real context consider Sarah Palin. As the Donna Summer song goes, "when I am bad, I am realy really bad". God Bless America!

ps Gordon, please go before you are run over by a mob.

Why does it take two women to have more balls than male MP's?

Is this the end or some PR stunt to grab headlines (5)?

The dials on my old cat's whisker have never been hotter!

Whom is to 'win'?

Under Labour's rules the hurdle facing those who want to force their leader out is very high. They have to get 70 Labour MPs to sign the nomination papers for a rival candidate.

70MPs? Gordon will be like Arthur Scargill after 2010 in that case. They'll never get rid of him. They may never have 70 MPs again.

Gordon Brown. Leader of the Labour Party. For Life.

How is Arthur Scargill these days? Still not enobled?

The fact that Charles Clarke is causing GB trouble should be no big surprise to anyone. What is interesting here is that GB clearly doesn't believe the old maxim "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer still". It is also obvious that GBs 'policies' are so poorly thought through and communicated that they don't mean anything to a significant proportion of the Labour party, let alone the electorate. Given this, what hope does Labour have the the next election?

Whilst we're here, and I know it got posted yesterday, but I just thought I'd remind everyone of these promises from Liebore's manifesto from 1997 - it would be funny were it not so tragic:

The myth that the solution to every problem is increased spending has been comprehensively dispelled under the Conservatives. Spending has risen. But more spending has brought neither greater fairness nor less poverty. Quite the reverse - our society is more divided than it has been for generations. The level of public spending is no longer the best measure of the effectiveness of government action in the public interest. It is what money is actually spent on that counts more than how much money is spent.

The national debt has doubled under John Major. The public finances remain weak. A new Labour government will give immediate high priority to seeing how public money can be better used.

New Labour will be wise spenders, not big spenders

Save to invest is our approach, not tax and spend.

New Labour will establish a new trust on tax with the British people.

Our long-term objective is a lower starting rate of income tax of ten pence in the pound.

We will examine the interaction of the tax and benefits systems so that they can be streamlined and modernised.

We will enforce the 'golden rule' of public spending - over the economic cycle, we will only borrow to invest and not to fund current expenditure.

We will ensure that - over the economic cycle - public debt as a proportion of national income is at a stable and prudent level.

Small business: We will cut unnecessary red tape.

We will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime

Police on the beat not pushing paper
Crackdown on petty crimes and neighbourhood disorder

Protect the basic state pension and promote secure second pensions.

We will reject the boom and bust policies which caused the collapse of the housing market.

We will reform party funding to end sleaze

To be honest this period of government inaction and relatively low-budget 'fixes' to try and assuage the gawd-awful mess Labour has got us into are exactly what we need. The last thing we need is for Gordon Brown to do what every other Labour government who has got themselves into this predicament does which print money.

Every day that doesn't happen goes much further to maintaining the credibility of the government and the currency than grandstanding about windfall taxes ever could. We, as a country, need Gordon in there paralysed by fear. Because while he's not doing anything useful he's not making the situation any worse. Harman's wooing of the 'brothers' with her blah blah about inequality reminds us just ho much things could get worse if Labour decides, in these times of economic disaster (of their own making) to go down the 'squeeze the rich' route.

The down-side of 'squeezing the rich' to appease the Labour core vote is how many people suddenly turn out to be 'rich' when compared with the ill-educated chump who will vote Labour as long as the 'rich' are getting thumped. Right now, even in the teeth of the greatest economic screw-up since the 1970's you can still poll 25% of folk who will vote Labour. That has to be close to the 'core' vote. Short of machine-gunning these people they will vote Labour. Even then they might qualify for a postal vote in Birmingham.

The other 75% will be the 'rich'.

You just hang in there Gordon. You're doing two good jobs. You're reminding people just how useless and financially incompetent Labour are with every day that this Labour government endures. PLUS, by your inaction, you're not actually making anything worse. The damage is already done. We just have to work through it. Any 'fix' you might attempt is doomed to make matters worse.

Sit there. Do nothing. Get annihilated in 2010. Plus totally destroy any ambitions of any Labour MP younger than 30.

Perfect.

Now his backbenchers are starting to facing facts - Brown must go.

70 votes may be needed to force a competition -- but far fewer are needed to fatally undermine Brown.

He may be too selfish to stand down even then -- but he should be calling a general election anyway.

He has had a year to 'layout his vision' that was what he put of the election for... So now it is due.

There is no point in lumbering the taxpayer with an extra 'ex-primeminister's exit package - straw or milliband getting our money for decades, just because they stood in for the last few months of labours collapse...

If the Labour Party was able to hold a secret ballot amongst it's members, unions and MP's today I am sure Crash Gordon would be out.

The reason that these Labour MP's are now coming out for a ballot is to try to force a leadership election as they know any new leader will help them hold on to their seats come the next General Election Massarce. It's pure self-interest. None of them are wanting a discussion about how this country gets through the economic crisis. They only want to talk about the leader....not policy.

These Labour MP's have no chance of toppling Brown through the procedural processes of the Labour Party. And Crash won't resign. So it's a stand-off and will continue to be. All this time and energy is being focused on an internal battle whilst Rome burns. I say this because Crash must be spending 25% of his time every day dealing issues relating to the internal dissent. This must stop now for the sake of the country and particularly the poor.

These Labour MP's should shut up, get behind the Prime Minister, despite his utter hopelessness, and contribute to the a debate about policy for these difficult times behind closed doors. They are all entrusted to rule by the electorate. That's their job!

It doesn't matter who is leader as the Labour Party are doomed within the next 18 months. But is it better that Labour go down to a diginified defeat by the person who has harmed this country so much and has been the architect of it's economic demise. Labour can re-group after the election and provide a proper opposition.

All these Labour MP's want to do is de-stabilise the Government which in turn will de-stabilise the decisions of the Government thus affecting business and the people badly. All this is not making for good Government. They must stop all of this now and support their leader in a dignified way and then fight their internal battles AFTER the election when it won't affect the hard working families of this country.

Major's Government was a disgrace and Brown's is looking exactly the same.

Self- interest rules OK is seems!

meanwhile in the real world people don't care, they just want the price of food, gas, petrol etc to comedown.

Brown only has himself to blame. In the run up to his leadership election he claimed he wanted an open contest, and then surpressed any opposition to ensure he was elected unopposed. Democracy in action- and bound to cause simmering resentment.

He effectively has no elected mandate, either from his party OR the electorate. The Prime Minister that no-one voted for. An open contest might just be what he needs...win and the public see his party believe in him, lose and the party has another chance

I say this because Crash must be spending 25% of his time every day dealing issues relating to the internal dissent.

He will devoting 90% of his time eliminating internal dissent. The other 5% of the time he'll be writing a book about 'Heroes' and the remaining 5% of the time he'll be deciding who to send on the Andrew Marr show this Sunday to read out this little speech he's prepared for them.

Your days are numbered Brown! Hahaha!

But is it better that Labour go down to a diginified defeat by the person who has harmed this country so much and has been the architect of it's economic demise. Labour can re-group after the election and provide a proper opposition.


A dignified defeat? I want them to suffer an utterly humiliating defeat. I want them completely broken. Their bones crushed under the Panzer of 30 million votes.

Anything else would be an abomination against natural justice.

Major's Government was a disgrace and Brown's is looking exactly the same.

John Major had a majority of about six as long as the Ulster Unionists didn't rock the boat.

Gordon Brown has a majority of 70. If, after 10 years he hasn't got some policys to pull out of the bag the second he became PM with a majority that big then we can safely assume he is useless. He doesn't. His 'big idea' is to lock us all up without charge and have us carry ID cards around. The man is off his head.

He could salvage some kudos simply by blaming Tony Blair for all these rubbish policies (even if it's not true) and then systematically dump them. That's what most of the country thought he would do. That's what most of the Labour party thought he would do.

He hasn't. You do begin to wonder if the weren't all his idea all along and Tony was just there for the foreign travel and the photo ops.

I believe that the only thing keeping Gordon Brown in his job is personal vanity - he just doesn't want to be a Prime Minister who will have served one of the shortest terms.

He is a monumental failure and seems oblivious to the fact that this is what he will be remembered for. As the old adage goes, "careful what you wish for". He was broadly respected as Chancellor, now his political and personal reputation is in tatters.

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#9:

It is also obvious that GBs 'policies' are so poorly thought through and communicated that they don't mean anything to a significant proportion of the Labour party, let alone the electorate.

This is deliberate. Every statement he makes sounds, at first pass, as being entirely unambiguous. But it's only after you look at them and examine them for possible ambiguities that you have to go back for clarification. And why?

Because this government has plenty of previous form for making apparently unambiguous commitments and then relying on semantics and sophistry of the most insulting kind to persuade themselves that they didn't actually lie. No. You misunderstood.

Treaty on the Lisbon Constitution anybody?

Ooh now Labour MP George Howarth has requested nomination papers.

The revolution is at hand!

There is no candidate in the cabinet, or in the Labour Party as a whole, as far as I can see, who would successfully replace Gordon Brown as party leader and PM. We knew he would succeed Tony Blair. That was always on the cards.
But what he lacks, in my opinion, is the support of substantial politicians within the party to take the focus off him.
The triumvirate of Blair, Brown and Prescott worked well and was to the advantage of the party and the party leader.
But where are the successors to Gordon Brown and John Prescott in this Government?
And it seems to me, a mere impartial observer, that Gordon Brown's detractors within the party are doing their best to get the party voted out of office, whilst failing to present voters with alternative policies or positive thinking for the future of the party. It has also occurred to me that the Brown administration is a welcome change from Blair's presidential style, but that popular taste and media appetites favour the latter.

Poor Gordon, under phoney Tony's leadership and GB stewardship he never knew that borrowing so much money and giving away to ever lost cause was wrong.

But one thing for sure is whoever gets voted in 2010 will have to work more than a economic miracle to get us back up to even third world status !

Ten years ago we were estimated to be £59 billion in the black, now we are £564 billion in the red, but that's Labour favourite colour.

GB has always talked with pride about 'economic prudence', but has nobody realized that is the name of his cat !

I bet Brown lies awake at night, staring at the ceiling wondering why the hell he didnt call a General Election when he had a chance. It show excruciatingly poor judgement.
I am also angry that we havent had a chance to vote on him, whenever a party changes leader, and therefore PM it should trigger a general election.
To say that they are elected on the strength of a manifesto is extremely weak, particularly when it has been thrown out of the window long ago.
Its ok to claim to be the greatest chancellor the country has ever seen when the world economy is bouyant, then blame the down turn on these external factors. Pathetic.
Labour will be destroyed at the next election and good riddance, and I am a life long labour supporter; thats how much trouble they are in.
This situation really demonstrates the contempt politicians hold for the public. They are more interested in saving their jobs and salaries (in the short term at least) then doing something about the current government, and our unelected prime minister. Shame on you all.

This is ridiculous, Siobhain McDonagh gets fired for having an opinion and publicly sharing it. It is her job to say what she thinks is best for the people that have elected her. If the MPs don't have free speech how does the government think they can trick us into think we have any say in this great de-mock-racy.

Brown should allow there to be a contest, if he wins then everyone will shut up if not we have the joy of blaming everything on some one else!

Whilst Labour MP's claim taxpayers money to pay for their high standards of living, Rome will burn for another 18 months.

It's time to start a discussion about the type of policies needed for this country to recover from what will be in 2010, 13 years of mind-blowing profligacy.

Any ideas guys? Let's try to be constructive and positive. These bloggs should now be used to try to influence the thinking of the Conservative Party who will be our next servants/masters (?). I guess many senior Conservative's read Nick's blog secretly!

Let's hope that the Conservatives just level with us in an honest way and don't dish up a manifesto in 2010 like the one in Post 10 highlighted by djlazarus. What a @@@@@@ joke that now seems! An total contrick of mammoth proportions. I wonder what Trading Standards would say about that is they had the powers!

Honest, conviction politics please!

Who on earth would have the balls to put their head above the parapet and challenge Gordon Brown? If they did they could kiss goodbye to a high paid post in Government. If they are a minister they would either be immediately sacked or reshuffled into oblivion next time around. Nobody forgives a traitor unless of course it is yours truly himself. Thankfully it is in our power to eject him from his cushy number at the next General Election. Nothing barring a disastrous serious of gaffes by the Opposition can prevent that from happening.

I will be eligible to vote in 2010, and my vote will not be going to the Liebour party! The only shame is that we will have to wait 18 months until Gordon Brown is forced out of number 10 kicking and screaming.

He (and the rest of his circus) consistently claim that they are "listening to the people".

Well listen to this Gordon:

CALL AN ELECTION NOW.

Gordon Brown is being besieged from evey corner. He was once revered for his economic policies but now seems to be scorned when he offers economic prescriptions. It is far too early to write him off; in fact silly to do so. Gordon has tremendous skills: prudent financial skills which kept Labour in the ascendency. Now mid-term blues have placed the Labour Party in a defensive mode with Gordon at the unfortunate receiving end. He could still weather the storm and rescue the Government and the Labour Party. Good Luck to a brilliant mind caught up in the machinations of the Opposition.

The time for loyalty is when the going gets tough. I will never forgive any treacherous or disloyal moves to oust Gordon Brown who I feel strongly is clearly the most able person to deal with the exceptionally difficult times that we are having to face. I just don't see any other potential leader able to perform better in these adverse conditions.

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

re: 30

Hahahahaha!

Pancha_Chandra @30

Is a "brilliant mind" a euphemism for 'psychologically flawed'?

This is all party of a cunning plot. We are being carefully conditioned. The idea that we need a new approach to government and an end to the New Labour experiment has already been replaced by an 'anything is better than this lot' mentality.

Now it gets really clever. Labour has a majority of 70 so we can't throw him out. The PLP has no credible replacement so they can't throw him out and they can't put together 70 rebels anyway. So they are just going to carry on slinging mud and plotting plots.

The ultimate objective is that they drag all this out into 2010 getting more and more boring so that, by then, nobody will give a flying ferret who wins what just as long as we can talk about something interesting for a change. Turn out at the election will be limited to insomniacs and people with nothing better to do and the newly elected Labour government with a huge majority based on 1% of the popular vote will consider it prudent to abolish elections altogether as nobody is interested any more.

Post 30. Pancha_Chandra.

Please!

You are as deluded as Gordon!

Just name me ONE, just ONE, party in Government that has come back from the depths of these "mid-term blues" and in such economic circumstances and won a general election? Just one?

The only one I can think of is John Major in 1992 and he had Al Right Welsh Windbag Kinnock to help him. Cameron is no Kinnock.

We've got a least 10 years of Tory rule into the 2020's to enjoy all down to Crash Gordon!

Woo Hoo!

Post 31.

I do...Cameron!

#28 - misswaldorf

"Who on earth would have the balls to put their head above the parapet and challenge Gordon Brown?"

Someone who does not have the brains to put their balls above the parapet first - kinda rules Harriet Harman out doesn't it?

If anyobody who posts on here thinks that Cameron can or will make petrol/food/taxes etc affordable they are living in cloud cuckoo land. Cameron and his ilk want to make money for their rich friends who own the privatised unaccountable foreign owned monopolies that charge what they like and get away with the death of cold pensioners. Even leaving that aside, the Tories have pledged to keep Labour's spending plans for the first half of their government. Cuts in public spending wll be selective in the end, resulting in mass unemployment and a lousy health service that the Tories neither believe in, use or encourage to use.

Part of the tradgedy is that the Blair/Brown intervention of the market in the provision of public services will make it easier for the Tories destroy the last vestiges of decency in this lousy country.

Coupled with a McCain victory in the US we will all firmly be in a handcart to hell.

And the woman who strated this mess? She is being shown around Chequers garden by Gordon Brown as I write.

Shameful. Tragic. Disgusting.

34 septic max your credibility is gone we all now know you are a bloated capitalist, its no wonder you try to talk down to us.

38 threnodio. I like it, lower class, but very funny.

36 northern thatcherite
you say
" Cameron is no Kinnock." your to right, he's not , Kinnock has twice the brains cameron has.

#39 - sandPerran

The Tory commitment on public expenditure, as Michael Howard made clear on Newsnight yesterday, is to adhere to government spending plans until 2010-11 not - as you say - for the first half of their period in office.

I am not unsympathetic to your views but you need to get your facts right.

#30

Again another reference to Gordon Brown's intellectual abilities, this time it's a 'brilliant mind'.

In a earlier thread I remarked that I had never seen any evidence of high intelligence from Gordon. Could anyone please tell me on what thay base this assertion? Did he perform really well at school,university or in a earlier job? I have asked this before but nobody has come back with an answer.

#35: Your maths is almost as bad as Labour's economics. It only takes 36 rebels to defeat a majority of 70.

That number has been exceeded several times already - hence the back pedalling on the10p tax etc when the government knew it was facing a commons defeat.

Changing the Captain will make no difference if the ship is still heading towards the rocks.

Where were these brave labour "rebels" when the votes were taken in the House of Commons on pushing through the European constitutional treaty without the promised referendum, the extension of detention without charge to 42 days, ID cards, or the snoopers charter that allows local authorities to spy on the public including emails?

Unfortunately Brown is tainted both by his prolonged effort to remove Blair and his lack of charisma. The great strides made by Labour since Blair became PM are largely lost to the public through presentation. Labour faikls to triumph its achievements and Brown fails to inspire confidence in leadership.

His cardinal error was not calling a General Election after ousting Blair. That form of succession does not sit comfortably with wavering voters and the World scale problems since only serve to emphasise the magnitude of the error.

Labour remains in the cycle of being less socialist than the Conservative Party, not that they are, just that it appears that way. It was a strategy to win power, not a bible for the future. With virtually nothing to choose between Labour and Conservative, the concensus view may be to 'pick the other lot since they couldn't do any worse'.

Brown has to go... the problem remains who to replace him with as the Blair/Brown partnership effectively quelled individualism in Labour.

#45 - WildGardener

In which case my maths are marginally better than your understanding of the PLP's. rules.

In order to start a leadership contest from within the PLP, it is necessary for the rebels to obtain the support of 20% of the members which, on current figures, is 70 MPs.

The fact that they have a majority of 70 in the Commons is pure coincidence. It may come as a suprise to you but I can work out that 35 is half of 70 without help.

37 nothern thatcherite

I do...Cameron!
so you avdocate that we select caneron to guide us out of a immmminent recession, I guess he has all the Tory credentails for that post after all he was trained by that great chancellor Norman Lamont and educated at Eton,you cant get a better CV than that , now be fair.

This is just a re-enactment of the Thatcher tottling. We have a leader who is seen as being out of touch and increasingly ineffective.

The leader refuses to go. The leaders cronies huddled around wont throw the leader out because they will be out of favour with the new leader.

So the lower level in the enclave revolt and topple the leader. It is all a waste of time because it is most unlikely to rejuvinate public enthusiasm for the current government, in fact the toppling is seen by the public as more reason for concern.

This is not a peasants revolt. The peasants are the voters who have no say in this toppling process. This is a feathered enclave trying to hang on to their jobs at the next election. They dont like that sort of description but they are on higher than average salaries, many perks and considerable unquestioned allowances and a position of power. That is feathered.

Major replaced Thatcher and was seen as a caretaker. He survived an election simply because Labour were not attractive as an alternative at the time, and in particular at that time were seen are less than sensible custodians of the ecomony and interest rates (mortgage cost).

In fact at the time Blair basically said New labour would behave like the Conservatives on financial expenditure to help swing it.

No such concerns seem to be felt about the Conservatives at this time. It would be a miricale if the Conservatives did not get in at the next election and whether Brown is leader or not will make no difference.

There would appear to be great voter resentment to high taxes, stealth taxes by any other name such as the energy policy just anounnced which is due to be collected via energy bills.

The fact is the majority of this country did not want to enter a US lead war. You insist on going to war and win then ok. You insist on going to war and get bogged down for years, cost hundreds of lives and billions of pounds, help provoke more terrorism, have no clear end point or outcome then your card gets marked. Labour and Brown where part of that mess.

This government also has clearly let private companies, the banks, run the economy, and strip money out of the economy, which was an abdication of responsibility.

The problem is that The Conservatives will inherit an economy which has bottomed out and is on the upswing. They will take all the credit, be happy to see a housing market boom and the great danger is that we have to go around the whole loop again to the same end point. There is little in the way of economic miracle in the UK, it is all about house prices.

"All of this in-fighting is futile: there's only one thing that can save Labour now.

Gordon Brown could survive to win the next election if Argentina launched an attack on Port Stanley, and if we sailed a task force down there, sunk a few ships and chucked them out.

If Gordon stood on a tank and waved a union jack, we'd all cheer and throw votes at him. Apart from that chance, it's curtains for Labour at the next election, so they might as get used to it."

The EU would veto it.

#18 ... U and the numbers,

You write quite well but you should try and calm down a bit if that's possible. Most of your points are silly but some of them aren't and the good stuff is getting lost.

You're trying a little too hard to be "devastating", I think that's the problem.

49 northern thatcherite, I print this again as my computer has gone awol again
I do...Cameron!
so you advocate that we select Cameron to guide us out of a imminent recession, I guess he has all the Tory credentails for that post after all he was trained by that great chancellor Norman Lamont and educated at Eton,you cant get a better CV than that , now be fair.
Maybe it wasn't the computer after all.

"If Gordon stood on a tank and waved a union jack, we'd all cheer and throw votes at him."

All he needs is drinking lessons and you won't be able to tell him apart from Yeltsin.

51 purpledogzzz you mean in the way that thatcher conived to get re- elected, Well it worked for her didn't it.

# 30 Pancha_Chandra

You say "Gordon has tremendous skills: prudent financial skills which kept Labour in the ascendency".

Hmmm. I don't thinks so.

Brown inherited a healthy economy in 1997 and got by for a few years because of stable conditions. But when the going gets tough, prudence goes out of the window!

"Tax and spend" has become "borrow and waste". Labour has plunged this country into a crisis of its own making.

A change of direction, not a change of leader, is what is needed now.

Gordon Brown is an OK guy but he is not a leader.
He needs to realise for the good of the party he needs to step down and let someone else take charge.
I noticed during the Georgia conflict how much David Milliband did, he's the kind of guy they need in charge

I will be amazed if there are not at least seventy MP's that want a leadership contest.
If there is not they all must be on the same wave length as Gordon.
If that is the case then they should cling on to him and be wiped out as a party at the first possible chance.
I can not believe this is the case.
The few that don't want to irritate Gordon will stand up for once and be counted.
I will (like a lot of the country) be watching very closely, at who wants to follow the path to destruction of or country, that Blair and Brown are on.

# 53 grandantidote

Some socialists might think that because Cameron was educated a private school, this somehow counts against him. Who said the class war was over?!!

It's also strange when some Labour MPs have been privately educated themselves and/or send their children to private schools. Typical Labour double standards - "do as I say, not as I do"!

#57 - MeanWarlock

"I noticed during the Georgia conflict how much David Milliband did, . . ."

What I noticed was how much he talked although I do not recall him actually recall him saying very much of note.

So is this party leadership nomination system a proof that the Labour Party in democratic Britain is superior to the Communist Party in China under an autocratic system?

Aren't we going to hear Free Tibet anymore, or is the Olympics over now?

Oh, okay, I will settle for Free Britain from Gordon Brown, even if we don't get Free Britain from Labour..... Crumbs, Lazarus....

What I noticed was how much he talked although I do not recall him actually recall him saying very much of note.

I seem to recall reading recently that the Russian Foreign Minister rang him recently for a little tete-a-tete. Using the kind of language most of us would use if we happened upon him in the long grass.

I do hope it's true.

Oh boy. This government is loathed across the board. Internally and internationally.

While I don't want the economy to get any worse I think it's inevitable. The last thing I want is for Gordon to call an election because all that will do is hand Cameron the hospital pass that is the UK economy. PLUS, the apparatchiks will then be blaming Cameron for bringing us into recession. We haven't had our two negative quarters yet. One is in the bag but they could still avaoid being in power for the second one and then disingenuously blame the Tories.

I want everybody to be crystal clear whose fault this disaster is. And if it takes 18 more months of personal pain then I'm prepared for that. The pay-off is Labour will be consigned to history.

I can live with that. I bet Cameron doesn't want to be PM for another 18 months either. By then the voters will be ready for their medicine.

There are three problems:
what labour MP would want to take over the mess?
remember GBs government of all the talent - there aint any.
Why would turkeys vote for Xmas?

It is going to be a long 18 months. Any sensible labour MP is looking to their future - outside Westminster. It will be interesting to see if they drift off to the 'safety net' of the welsh and scottish 'jobs for the boys' assemblies.

grandantidote @40

Anyone weighing 20st is ill-advised to talk about 'bloated'.

re: 64

Lol how true!

I say feed him to the grizzlies.
Unfortunately, it is unfair to the brown bears.

Brown and his cabinet are painfully poor and in fact a danger to the UK economy.
Even the agreement with energy companies for insulation etc may be passed on to customers. The best the government can say is there is an EXPECTATION that the cost will not be passed on. Therefore they have no firm agreement that it will not. Looks like it may be another finacial burden on those who only pay into the pot and receive nothing back at all.

Labour out for sake of our country!!

Are you in the market for a used car?
Assuming you can afford the fuel ( I Had to put my car in as a deposit on a tank full!

[IMG]https://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o309/babellchapel/_45013980_9be33243-eea4-4a8d-a16d-a.jpg%5B/IMG]

Here is the head of Sales Dept. Prudence Brown.

Post No.8

"Gordon Brown. Leader of the Labour Party. For Life."

Not very likely.

Alex Salmond will stand against Brown at the next General Election and Brown will lose.
That's why he bottled out last year!!!!

The bottom line is that Labour are entering a civil war with no clear sides and no clear solutions. Once the "phoney war" is over they are going to start ripping each other apart and Labour will sink still further in the polls.

I still question whether the the Labour Party won't fragment into new parties within ten years.

#10.

If that is an accurate copy of Labour's 1997 manifesto promises then it should be obvious to everyone that Labour has systematically lied and fiddled to the point that they achieved the exact opposite of every promise made.

Such a record is utterly indefensible.

By the way anybody know what David Cameron stands for?

God save the Queen - and all of her subjects.

To the poster of no.30 - and a few others, I cannot believe how deluded you are, your level of denial is monumental. This country is SUFFERING due largely to the arrogance and stupidity of one man: Gordon Brown. Granted he has been helped in his idiocy by various others, most notably the vast bulk of cowardly labour MPs and most of the media sucking up to him at every opportunity but the responsibility lies with him and I hope to God nobody forgets that. I am so sick of hearing about the 'evils' of Thatcher, yes, the early 80s were a hugely painful time for many people but damnit, she improved things for the majority. And I remember the late 70s, I still shudder at some of those memories, it's amazing how many people have conveniently forgotten the utterly dreadful economy that Mrs. T inherited.
And as for those few 'class warriors' out there, please grow up. Class is no indicator of ability, or inability for that matter. If you want to throw rocks at Cameron please at least have the honesty to ask yourselves "Who is the only prime minister in the last 35 years to have been privately educated?" Oh yes, that would be Tony 'Man of the People' Blair, wouldn't it? But then hypocrisy has always been one of the chief labour sins.
Who knows how David Cameron will do? I have high hopes but those hopes may be dashed. One thing I do know is that he will do better than the current shower of shite. I just hope he's given enough time to do it.

By the way anybody know what David Cameron stands for?

I have a pretty good idea:-)
But if you were him what would you do? Every time he comes up with an idea two things happen: the majority of the media rubbish it and then Labour steal the idea, twist it, bastardise it, devalue it and then present it to us poor mutton chops all wrapped up in a shiny red ribbon. If I was D Cameron I'd be keeping my lip very firmly zipped indeed.

Do we know what these Labour rebels want? It's hard to support or deny support if we only know that they're Anti-Brown.

Do they want a return to Old Labour politics? Are they just pandering to the newspapers?

Is there anywhere we can find out what these guys and girls want for the party and the country up til the election should they succeed, other than minus one Gordon Brown?

At the moment it seems quite an empty gesture.

Why has this all come to fruition this weekend, I wonder? Perhaps it had something to do with the revelation that £500m of British taxpayers money was being channeled into a certain project in Geneva that might very well spell the end of mankind.

Gordon took the baton from Blair and has tried to revitalise the economy. But the world economomy has been on a tail-spin! One cannot blame Brown for that. This is a world-wide recession and even the best economic brains do not have a clue as to the solutions. So give Gordon a break! He is trying to give the kiss of life to the British economy. Labour is one party that is trying to help the poor and the needy while the Conservatives have always supported the rich and upper middle class. It is time that equality of opportunity is given to all sections irrespective of race, colour or creed. Gordon is in a difficult moment now but should come out of the crisis provided he follows his instincts. Labour should come out trumps!

#71

I doubt Mandleson or even Alastair Campbell would have an answer to that one, and let's face it, they had an answer for everything!

Can we please have a General Election. We are a normal family on a low income....its got so bad under these muppets.. Brown is not even elected as PM....If labour want to stay in power....they need a new leader and as for the rest of the muppets in the cabinet that are millionaires and get paid so much form our taxes should just give up,....we have had enough as a country, they lie, cheat and forget who they serve...they are greedy...this is not the real labour party, these lot Im sorry to say are scum

# 75

MikeS_C

"Do we know what these Labour rebels want?"

The impression is they are interested only in saving their own skins! Realising that they will probably lose their seats at the next election if Brown is still at the helm, they come creeping out of the woodwork to try to get rid of him. Of course, they tell us they are acting for the good of the party and country!

Where were these self-righteous "rebels" when we needed them?

Why were they silent when Brown denied us the referendum on the EU constitutional treaty which had been promised on page 84 of Labour's 2005 manifesto?

The problems for the Labour Party have their antecedents in the policies of Tony Blair. When he, with the connivance of the other right wingers, decided to turn Labour into the Tory Party mark II the die was cast. Gordon Brown, who didn't speak up then, is now suffering the inevitable consequences.

It is ironic, that those who began the downfall of the Labour Party, are now, lead by Charles Clarke, trying to unseat Brown and exert their influence once again.

Unless Cameron slips up badly, all he has to do is sit back and watch as New Labour is consigned to history unless, that is, Labour finds a messiah - quickly. It is not impossible, look at how the bumbling John McCain has revived his fortunes by selecting Sarah Palin to run with him.

In Brown's case, the "messiah" could be in a recognition that the New Labour experiment has been a complete disaster and as a consequence the Labour Party is going to return to its core principles, apologise for following Bush into the illegal attack on Iraq and implement a new set of policies which put ordinary people first and not the corporations and monopolies that are only there to cream off as much as they can from the incomes of working people.

Brown is a clever man but because he is so indecisive he cannot do the above by himself, therefore he should ditch the majority of the sycophants in the cabinet, appoint a deputy, who maybe he hasn't seen eye to eye with in the past, Bob Marshall-Andrews comes to mind, to help him select a new team and get cracking on restoring the fortunes of the country and thereby the Party.

Hey Grandadantipasta.

A decade of Tory Government is now virtually upon us due to the failures of your "hero" Crash Gordon.

Please tell me how you feel about that?

Woo Hoo!

Please keep up the infighting Labour MP's so that we get a thumping majority!

Go girls and boys go!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you all remember Crash Gordon's snidy smile when driving out of Downing Street in the back of his limo after he finally got Bliar to set a date for his departure? Well let's see the British Electorate wipe that smug self-righteous smile right off that failing face of his. It will be a classic moment in British political history as the shortest serving Prime Minister for over 100 years gets well and truly booted out!

There is one guy who could turn it around for Labour though.............John Reid.

I wonder if he'll be making a comeback very soon???

Hmmmm.

# 73 Chow,

So, our economic woes are more to do with Gordon Brown than the banker created Credit Crunch are they? That what you believe?

Funny how Spain, Germany, US, Japan, Italy, Canada and Australia are all heading into a slump too, isn't it?

Guess Gordon's influence must be truly international.

74 chowbelanna

"I have a pretty good idea" that must be a first for you.

#81

Jack, right on.....couldn't agree more..

Would it not be great to hear conference, indorse core labour values and re-introduce clause 4 and calling for the immediate public ownership of energy and transport companies for the betterment of the British public......

64 septit max I may be 20st but even at 78 I still carry it well.
I can assure you that I have not led the life that makes you bloated, I unlike you have worked with my hands to earn my living not as in your case screwing people in order to furnish your trips half way around the world ,
So that you can satisfy your lust for death by bringing to an end the life of a noble creature worth a dozen of you.
The only way you come out on top is not because you have more intelligence than the unfortunate beast but only because you have a gun.
It must make you feel like a real man to have the poor creature lying at you feet.

Crash Gordon:

The most unpopular leader in the Western World?

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7595696.stm

Why?

Re #77

Nobody denies that Brown is trying to deal with a lousy world economic situation. Unfortunately he has made things very much worse for UK plc by squandering money during the good times and hence having nothing in the pot to put things right now. The British have always tended to put extra cash into housing (the first big house price inflation in the seventies was driven by the increase in household income as married women went back to work) and in a small island with limited space, demand-pull inflation works its inexorable logic. G Brown put masses of mostly unnecessary and often undeserved extra cash into peoples' pockets via increased public sector spending, whether financed by traditional taxation or shady PFI deals; added to a breathtaking ignorance of the effects of increased "non-status" private lending on real (as opposed to Mickey Mouse CPI) inflation, a house price spiral was bound to develop. And he should have had the balls to stop it, by tightening up on the lending rules, instead of coasting along on a spurious "feelgood factor". Meanwhile the MPC appears to be totally ignorant of the difference between demand-pull and cost-push inflation, and have belatedly imposed the tools they should have used against the former to deal with the threat of the latter - which should be dealt with in the normal way by supply and demand (see the drop in petrol usage). Meanwhile high interest rates are of course depressing things even further. A curse on all their houses!

My advice to Brown? Start acting with conviction and damn popularity from the press.

Why not introduce reforms now that will hurt and be unpopular but will have to be done. Take the EU - we're going to need them and want to stay in the club (despite what others may say) perhaps serious consideration about membership of the Eurozone? You can't be anymore unpopular!

Perhaps decent constituitonal reform for a change. A system without the monarchy perhaps? I still find it offensive that we have no say in our Head of State and am someones 'subject.'

Take risks. Do the unpopular. That might save you in the end.

#84 - Let's compromise. Gordon Brown is no more responsible for the impending recession than he was for the preceding period of prosperity.

grandantidote

So that you can satisfy your lust for death by bringing to an end the life of a noble creature worth a dozen of you.

Um, yeah, a noble creature. Not a treacherous, dithering backslider at all. No way.

#91

No compromise there, just the admission the the global economy has an affect on Britain, as it has on many other countries.

Ppppppst......did you mean to be clever there.......Oooops

grandantidote @87

Really - what have you been taking? You seem to have confused me with Ernest Hemingway (which is kinda flattering, I guess) or some other big-game hunter.

You know absolutely nothing about me, for unlike you I have spared the readers of this blog banal autobiographical details of the kind that you have furnished.

Tally Ho!

in reply to U9461192, its only 70 MPs at present because thats 20% of the total number of labour MPs-afetr the general election that number will probably be reduced to about 30

92 ppl
I say with reference tothe death of one of gods finest creatures the Moose
2So that you can satisfy your lust for death by bringing to an end the life of a noble creature worth a dozen of you."
You reply with
"Um, yeah, a noble creature. Not a treacherous, dithering backslider at all. No way."
makes you wonder folks dont it!

BTW, The only moose I've ever destroyed was a chocolate mousse.... (especially good with a bit of brandy)

Still, I'd be willing to try a moose-burger. I've eaten - venison basically.

BTW, The only moose I've ever destroyed was a chocolate mousse.... (especially good with a bit of brandy)

Still, I'd be willing to try a moose-burger. I've eaten raindeer - venison basically.

re: 96

Well obviously I thought you were talking about Brown, which is an easy mistake to make for your phrase

So that you can satisfy your lust for death by bringing to an end the life of a noble creature worth a dozen of you

is just the sort of claptrap you and the other Nu-Lab zealots regularly regurgitate.

re: 98

We should throw the Labour MPs on the barbie.

I presume they'd taste like pork.