“Brown is Bonkers” Meme Now Underpins the Tory Message
Matthew d’Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph is optimistic in his analysis of Cameron’s Birmingham “sorry” speech. Matthew compares the speech to Keith Joseph’s systematic attack on the post-war economic consensus, the famous speeches which were the intellectual foundation of Thatcherism. That seems to overstate things a lot.
Tactically Matthew reckons the subtext comes straight out of the Guido playbook :
Dave has the integrity to admit that he and his party are not infallible, and the self-confidence to concede error and to draw the correct conclusions. What they really mean is: in contrast to the bonkers Scotsman stomping around Number 10, shouting randomly at people like a man in a tam-o’-shanter carrying a plastic bottle of cider under the Embankment. Politics is a nasty business: the subtext “at least Dave is sane” will underpin most of what the Tories say until polling day.
Good. No amount of talk as to the merits of quantitative easing, credit flows or monetary policy will ignite passion, or hope to “seal the deal”. Talk instead of the Prime Mentalist in Downing Street, who has now almost run out of people to blame, yet won’t himself say sorry. Inflaming that popular anger with Gordon will “seal his repeal”. The Tories should stoke it all the way to the election.
Strategically Matthew thinks Dave has disowned the political consensus, “apologised for his part in it, and urged the voters to brace themselves for tough decisions. By saying sorry, he wiped the slate clean.” Was that really clear to anyone who didn’t get the CCHQ briefing? Certainly wasn’t manifestly clear to Guido. Dave has tried for years to seize the centre-ground and up until very recently was wed to centrist economic approaches which would not pull us out of this credit crisis. The promised return of sound money will require radical policy change, with tough choices that will be unpopular in the short term. Shattering the failed consensus will require more than fine words.
Dave is like Keith Joseph ? God Almighty, how I wish ! Whilst it’s true that not snice the late 70s has there been such an essential emphatic need for an Opposition with passion, zeal and ability to roll back the frontiers of the State, the idea that Cameron can provide all of that is, quite frankly, laughable. He does not have the intellectual capability or vision, he does not have the energy and, to put it bluntly, he does not have the balls.
I truly wish that I could disagree.
He’s just settling for getting in as not-the-Hoon
then more of the same old shite, just a bit cheaper
NOT GOOD ENOUGH DAVE
I doubt very much that ‘Dave’ would have the balls to advocate compulsory sterilisation of social ecconomic groups 4 & 5 to ‘de-chav’ the UK.
Wasn’t Keith Joseph known as the “Mad Monk”?
Didn’t the last survey find that the overwhelming reason for voting for CallMeDave was to vote against Gorgon?
Fair enough, Dave, if you think that that’s good enough…
Personally, I’d like to fucking know what you’d do if you got into power:
ID
CCTV
NHS
3000+ shite laws
border policing
repatriation of illegal immigrants
Trident
Afghanistan
Iraq
Just a few policies Dave, for fucks sake
Indeed. Those questions are questions I would ask him myself. But I believe that the Tories, based on your statements are:
Against ID cards and would scrap them.
For a Border Police Force.
For Trident.
I think they are against the Iraq war now based on “what we now know” but for Afghanistan.
That is as I understand it.
Oliver,
I’m sure you’re right but it might be nice if Dave actually got on his hind legs and shouted these things from the rooftops.
I’m with you – its all scary as!!
Do we live in soviet Russia or the UK?!
I’m so scared with what’s happening in this country.
Brown’s fate is sealed. And so is Britain’s.
Can Brown keep a grip as what’s left of the momentum in the economy fizzles out by late spring? What will he do when he is presiding over 3m unemployed and big house repossessions? He built a political career and ‘philosophy’ on the metrics of Conservative recessions. He could blow after the G20 goes arse-down and the June election calamity.
BYW – want to know how bad things are? Richard Rogers’ architectural practice has never seen it project bank so low.
Whatever Dave may say, the Conservatives have to move to the right. Enough of this centre-ground rubbish, let’s see the Tories stand up for what they were and what the majority of Tory voters want them to be….CONSERVATIVES!
In the bad old days there wasn’t this ‘left-right’ nonsense in Britain. Left was what Labour, the News Chronicle and the Unions were; judged by most people to be well-meaning but daffy, forgiven because they had combated the arbitrary power of employers, had given us the NHS and, er, that’s it.
They also gave us financial scandals and slumps, which from time to time made way for – not the ‘right’, but the common-sense, no-dogma party, the Conservatives. Their stock-in-trade was competence in government; drawn from the ruling classes (commercial as well as aristocratic) they knew how to run things. They also ran things in the interests of business, which meant that jobs were created. They further knew (see Harold Macmillan on the topic of the men he commanded in the trenches in WW1) that the British working classes were fundamentally decent people, tolerant but nobody’s fools.
It was clear by the 1970s that the Tories had become over-sympathetic to statism. Some sort of riposte was inevitable, but regrettably it took the form of dogmatism. Just like the daftest of Marxists, the Tories imposed a centralised theory and we suffered, by God we suffered. Eventually they saw sense but by then they had imprinted themselves on the public consciousness as the uncaring, grim-faced gauleiters of a rightist coup, forcing through their orthodoxy in the face of protest from the decent majority. (This is not an anti-Maggie rant; she did some good stuff; it’s an attempt to look at where conservatism got lost.) Inevitably they ran out of steam and we got Cheshire Cat politics from Tone, God rot him.
Now, how do the Tories have to respond? Dave made (IMHO) a false start by aping Tone, a natural thing for a PR man to do. (In today’s Observer Rawnsley argues that Dave’s big problem is that he has no agenda, no policies, nothing worked out for what they are going to do, hence no platform of which to fight the election. They haven’t a clue about what to do when Brown obligingly loses to them, he says.)
I would dearly love to see the re-invention of something closer to the Conservative Party of my youth, a party that looks at situations and judges them in terms of common sense rather than dogma. Dave is busy shaking off the dogma, and good for him. But where is the common sense? Few of his cabinet have actually run anything, fewer still have built businesses (or charities or public-sector enterprises), so the common sense must be lacking.
If common sense were prevalent we would have a list of issues that Dave promised to address, including:-
No 2 AnjelicaMong’s list above
Review of the EU relationship
Lisbon Treaty referendum
Sorting out the armed forces’ equipment problems
Getting out of Iraq and Afgahistan pronto
Removing the incentives for teenage pregnancy
Workfare (esp with vastly increased numbers of unemployed who would otherwise be idle and prone to mischief)
Reducing state dependency
Serious education and drug-elimination programmes in prisons
Getting schools educating children again
Localism
Removing the 750,000 new public servants Brown has created, plus some
Supporting moderate Muslims rather than only ever consulting extremists
Returning police to the streets
…..Oh, I could go on……..
My point is that a programme something like that would win Dave many friends and supporters. We would have something to vote FOR (people don’t vote against, they simply abstain). If he does not, I fear we shall see a huge rise in abstentions, a huge rise in support for the BNP and religion-based parties, underpinned by high unemployment and civil unrest.
Those are prospects I do not relish.
Despite the temptation, I don’t think Dave can say too much too soon. Yes he has said that the Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is definite, he has said that the ID cards will be scrapped, plus a few other items. But he doesn’t want to say very much about Iraq or Afghanistan because it might increase the risk to our troops if the ‘insurgents’ decide to step up their efforts to capitalise on any change in UK policy.
Similarly it is too early to say anything about welfare and benefit changes, and NHS changes, partly because the Conservatives don’t know how big a mess they are going to have to sort out, and partly they don’t want to stir up opposition to change so far in advance of a General Election.
Other things like Education and Prisons will probably take at least two terms of Government to sort out, so why commit now to a set of changes which will take 10 years to complete, when all Dave has to do is turn up to become the next Prime Minister? Unless of course the next government is in coalition with the LibDems (shudder) in which case ‘policies’ will have to be agreed with them in advance.
I expect that some of the things that the next governement is going to have to do will upset a lot of people. Still when you party for 11 years you have to expect a big clean up task.
I do agree though, and sincerely hope, that the Conservative plans are publicised just prior to the General Election.
Your point about “they knew how to run things.”, simply is not true. All they did when they had a chance was scape goat the uniions for the decline that followed the loss of empire where they had had a captive (literally) market and source of cheap raw materials.
Unions in Germany are powerful. Germay has a large and powerful economy (despite having to absorb ex communist East Germany). The German managerial class knows how to run things. The German working class knows how to make stuff because it is adequately educated and not vilified. The British managerial class and elite are by and large effete and useless. They have been usurped by Americans and other foreigners from their last perch in the City. The British working class doesn’t know how to make stuff because it hasn’t been educated for generations and in may parts has had appalling housing. Similar to Germany, France has large and powerful unions and a large manufacturing base with a lot of state ownership of industry. It’s managerial class knows how to run things.
The British managerial class is useless, perhaps something to do with boarding schools?
This time the limp lemons that comprise that group of people who think “they know how to run things” haven’t got the unions to blame. The reason is their own class of “professionals” that is financiers, auditors, corporate executives (you know the runners) have shafted the economy.
Dave won’t move right. He knows we will vote for him just to get rid of Gordon Brown.
We won’t hear any major new policies or strategy from the Tories until Brown announces the election, or possibly until nulab’s manifesto comes out, so that any new ideas are not nicked by nulab.
In the meantime, I wish we could have a re-start of the “Punch and Judy politics” that we used to have, and let the opposition parties start to act like an opposition.
I can’t see Dick the Pricks dick anymore FFS.
This is a fucking tragedy.
Why not, mate? Which orifice has it disappeared into?
You’re not the real Dennis are you?
Bergkamp, you mean?
FUCK!!!!! The ‘Centre Ground’ – whatever that is, – or was!!
That hump (or hollow) smacks of the I’ll-be-anything-you-want-ducky grinning idiot and his weird wife!
Let’s have plain words,
And plainer policies – simple, understandable, no bullshit, uncmoplicated :
Here’s a start :
The French want to provide a tent for the asylum seekers. Great. They started – let them take them.
Fair pay for fair work – NO NO NO NO! – not the bullshitters in town halls and quangos, – I mean proper productive work!
An end to the BEN-FIT Kulture!
Proper rewards for people who scrimp and save and don’t bleat ‘n sponge. I.e. DON’T TAX THEM TO PAY FOR SCROUNGERS.
That will do . . enough screamers already !!!!
Unfortunately, Dave can’t turn to the Institute of Economic Affairs for guidance on such matters as sound money or putting the economy back together – the IEA, that venerable institution of market freedoms and limited government is now touting Quantitative Easing as the panacea to all our ills. (And this from an institution that has a chart on its walls graphically illustrating the effects of Keynesian “economics” on the money supply growth rate…)
And, just to add insult to injury, one of the IEA’s “economists”, Gordon Pepper, tells us that quantitative easing will continue until the uber-Keynesians at the Bank of England, at the Treasury and in the IEA decide that things are well… obviously solving that rather pesky and inconvenient problem of knowledge that one of their much printed authors and intellectual godfather, the Austrian economist and Nobel Laureate FA Hayek, pointed to as the reason for central economic planning to fail and the importance of markets to solve.
Maybe this is just another example of what Hayek called “The Fatal Conceit”?
Still, we’re about to see the mother of all credit crunches, as the bail-outs start to fail. As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Human Action:
“The boom can last only as long as the credit expansion progresses at an ever-accelerated pace. The boom comes to an end as soon as additional quantities of fiduciary media are no longer thrown upon the loan market. But it could not last forever even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on endlessly. It would then encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless expansion of circulation credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the breakdown of the whole monetary system.”
And further says Mises, “it is certain that no manipulations of the banks can provide the economic system with capital goods. What is needed for a sound expansion of production is additional capital goods, not money or fiduciary media. The credit expansion boom is built on the sands of banknotes and deposits. It must collapse.”
And almost all of us get to pay the bill, says Mises:
“The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment… But the immense majority must foot the bill for the malinvestments and the overconsumption of the boom episode.”
Shame on the Institute of Economic Affairs for embracing Keynesianism and state intervention in the money supply when we need advocates of sound money and restraint of state action the most.
The IEA stance is shocking. Why did they bother printing “The Denationalisation of Money”?
Did the IEA people actually read it?
There is no such thing as an IEA stance. There are monetarist IEA authors and there are Austrian IEA authors. They do not agree with one another on how to respond to the crisis.
Certainly wasn’t manifestly clear to Guido
Well that’s not surprising is it?
Brown may be bonkers, but Dave is no better. If the tories plan to shut down the BOE and allow parliament to issue our own currency without having to pay interest on it, then I’ll vote for them
Dave should just smuggle a gun into the Commons and shoot the Hoon.
shit …bring in a claymore and just have done with it !
To the tune of “Some Enchanted Evening”, and in a Noel Coward voice:
“Quantitative easing….
Devalues all your savings….
Gordon needs a stealth tax…. and this…. is it.”
etc, but I think I have covered the main points.
By the way, did you enjoy (as much as I did) the look on the Great Tax Gobbler’s face when Merkel called time on the Great Global Government Spend Fest?
WTF? I wrote cnut and it came out Hoon.
Don’t you mean WTH?
p.s. me too
How interesting, my post #3 has been doctored to read “not-the-Hoon”
Not quite what I wrote (though definitely in the same vein).
Can’t say I much mind, but does that mean I get a refund from the swear box?
Does Hoon count officially yet?
(yes, I meant count, not Hoon – just testing again)
Okay…I see!
Any chance of a list of the mappings?
You could use rhyming slang for the originals.
We could have competitions to set meanings for Haties / EdBalls / Reid
Guido is messing with our mojos, and I dont like it.
SHoonhorpe.
Is Brown Bonkers?
Its worse than that.
See the evidence on this short film about the real story behind quantitative easing
Yeah – Quantitative easing
Actually, this is the right link (apologies) – Quantitative easing
McMadPooff has rogered us all as hard as Fondlebum rogered him over the desk in full view of HOC security
Shame is that we werent begging for it like he was.
Have you been cleaning the attic out lad?
Good man – get in! Hope the fams cool. Cheers bud – gonna be a strange one. No need to get excited by a good year…. err….Nurse!
I’m gonna miss your prick, dick.
Avatars gone?
Avatars and a few other things will be along shortly. We just want to bed in the new comment system first. This is the basic format. Want to get feedback before fullscale implementation. Not too complex. You still don’t have to register, but it is better if you do.
Had enough of dealing with moderation. The new software can take care of a lot of problems.
Am aiming for a community based moderation system. Guido has been wasting hours of his life since the Dollybots and Knuckle-Draggers went into overdrive.
Fair enough Sir, but suggest you tell us in advance what you are planning to implement and/or ask a bunch to try it out first. That would lessen the change shock.
This is your blog and territory (do what you like etc etc) but it’d shortcircuit a load of hassle by testing this on your readers first.
Just a thought from someone who does this for a living.
Guido, I’m probably a bit thick, but how do you link your Twitter profile?
Dealing with the Dollybots:
Fine by me.
Guido – ‘community-based mod’ sounds good prima facie, but may I raise a concern?
Over on the BBC’s PM blog there’s quite a fuss (Binyam story) about how anyone can cause anyone else’s post to be removed. No reason has to be given, all they have to do is click on the ‘complain’ button, it seems.
If your system would allow this, the opportunities for sabotage of posts that display any but the strongest support for NuLab would be too tempting for the Dollytrolls. You would then have an empty site!
Hope I’ve got it wrong and that there is no such danger. Thanks, too, for not demanding registration. I always feel it is intrusive when all I want to do is leave an electronic Post-It note. (I’m far too civilised to write on walls.)
Your site is a national treasure and anything that might undermine it is to be resisted.
I liked reading the blue
This is all very worrying and confusing, all this nesting of comments and “reply” to this, “reply” to that. Also where are the pictures?
I want pictures. Surely I cannot be alone is this? Do you want pictures? Why has Guido confiscated all our pictures? Guido, can we have our pictures back? Except the Beast’s,of course. That goes without saying.
I blame that rotter Peter Jobes (he is hiding in the bottom right-hand corner).
Peter Jobes you are a fucking cnut.
You will get your Avatar pictures back very soon. Incidentally Jobes is the graphic designer, not the site architect.
I suppose Jobes is “only obeying orders”, or pretending to be Swiss.
Mmmm.
Not sure about this, Fawkes, The reply option means people are having personal, wittering conversations on my screen.
So weak.
Choice can be confusing ;) You’ll get used to it soon enough.
dailymails got a good one where you just click to agree or disagree with the post ,then it gets scored !
entertainment
p.s. did you lift this “post nest” thingy form alex ?
[notice that naughty words (aka 'profanity') are avoided!]
I would like to be the first to congratulate Guido on the launch of his new arrangement.
And, as my curse is infallible, that should be the last we hear of that!!
Now, – where was I ? Ah! Nurse, time for my enema and good night story!
Could I have Goldilocks and the three trannys? – the Diversity and Inclusive version where they don’t have that nasty wet sexual encounter with those upsetting noises and smells, and where they spray air freshener afterwards?
This is potentially interesting. I think.
On Nov 5 we could have a billion pound bonfire with Brown as the guy.
Anyway, Is Brown Bonkers?
Yes.
I watched The Andrew Marr Show (totty interest was the dour Glaswegian hack who from time to time sits on Loose Women-take that anyway you like) and really thought The White Heather Club had been revived and the dreadful out of tune harpie Moira Anderson and Jimmy Shand would pitch in and guess what they did right at the end. Woefully out of tune and curdled the boiled egg.
I don’t really care if Marr wanted a trip home but with the World crashing arouind us what was the programme all about? Someone somewhere has to face up to reality, recognise this country is NOT MULTICULTURAL, does not have unlimited resources and acres of spare land to restart the construction trade. We also need to pull out of the Olympics, as our fanatical bretheren are already ramping up the security odds and by the time the Olympics are on us, our troops will be knackered they will still be waiting for replacement ’snatch’ vehicles and repairs to their family houses. Brown sees no need to resign – but being a son of the manse perhaps our religious masters can have a word in his ear. I hold no brief for Cameron but he is the only credible alternative. If he did gain power then a wholesale change of portfolios needs to be undertaken and possibly some of the old guard wheeled outfor gravitas and experience.
Can I finish by suggesting you tune into Fox news for the late night REDeye programme (on at 6am in the UK) you’ll learn a lot more than from the BBC and some of the homophobic jokes (although American) are funny..must lie down now…
I like the way they went all the way to Edinburgh and then shot the thing in front of a window behind which was hung a BACKDROP PICTURE OF EDINBURGH.
On some of the shots you can see the edges of it, and also the balustrade sticking out from the sides of the backdrop picture…
I guess they couldn’t afford the room with the actual view then?
@JULIANBRAY) says: March 15, 2009 at 9:57 pm
// Brown sees no need to resign – but being a son of the manse perhaps our religious masters can have a word in his ear.//
There is but one master, and his name is God. Perhaps this “God” will smite him down? With his wrath, or some such similar implement? Or split him in twain with the sword of justice? Or simply shoot the Hoon between the eyes?
Here endeth Elby’s 53rd Epistle To The Hoon Brown
Ah – a “hoon” detector at work. Cool :-)
What else might we find in the way of easter eggses, I wonders?
By the way, the Hoons found Calfy* guilt. Hoons. Barrister shocked. So to appeal it is, and I am already starting my epistle to the Hoon Straw. Fuck them
* My stepdaughter’s Blog handle. Up for frightening a riot policeman at a demo. She was 17, was and is pink and innocent. One more citizen, anyway, who knows the state is her enemy. And she had thought of working in the Foreign Office (and is smart enough to). Hoons.
I’m totally lost – this feels like Draperlist.
Can we go for an option that isn’t nested as there’s no flow of conversation now and depending on where one jumps into a conversation – we end up dislocated from the other exchanges????
(I liked registration as it saved me typing in my ID everytime – can we try that again too?)
PS Twitter?? No thanks for the opt in tick
There is a flow of conversation, it is just not one long list.
If you allow cookies you shouldn’t have to retype your ID.
It’s better than LabourList anyway. That’s something.
Cookies are good – thanks, but nope this is hideous. Even I have enough IQ left after copious bottles of death-plonk to follow an in line conversation.
This new format feels like loads of dead ends strung together in a meaningless list – just like you know where.
Give me a long list again please as an option and let my little grey cells work it out for themselves….less pointless sweary trolling is jolly welcome BTW :)
Takes a little getting used to, but I prefer it. Much easier now to follow the window-lickers and scroll past the bores. Give a refund to the moaners.
It’s better than LabourList anyway. That’s something.
Children’s game forums are better than DraperList.
Fair play buddy. Love comment moderation off. Ta.
Ditto, but I’m still lost and have no idea what this conversation is now about.
*disappointed*
(and will forget where I said this in a sec)
“THERE IS A FLOW OF CONVERSATION, IT IS JUST NOT ONE LIST.”
Is that better?
Mr Typo
There is no reply link to you so NO.
And I don’t want to end up in a dead end conversation like this either.
*opens more vino*
PS Mr Fawkes – your ‘optional’ thingy reads as ‘optiona’ in a standard Blogger template)
“(and will forget where I said this in a sec)”
I kinda wish you had.
Are you a refugee from Draperlist?
*Yawn, troll pygmy at large*
This is nice font. Good colour balance – dynamic and vaguely organized maybe? Can you not get an insert blog screen anymore?
I like the “bonkers Scotsman” analogy. Most of the cider-swilling expatriate Scots who hang around the embankment apparently share a habit with our Prime Minister, that of involuntary urination.
Cameron’s an idiot for apologising. It doesn’t matter whether he thinks he ought to have known this or that. The fact is that, although he may have guessed, he didn’t have enough evidence to do much, because Brown kept the whole problem from everyone, and filled the civil service and particularly the Treasury with his own people. By taking the blame for the past, Cameron’s implying he’d have done exactly the same as Brown – so why then should we bother to vote for Cameron? Look, Bimbo, this is Important Stuff! And we’re not voting Tory for the polar bears and wind farms and More Compassion with Disaffected Teenagers, we’re voting to save the f*****g economy, stoopid!
[...] Fawkes reports that “Brown is Bonkers” Meme Now Underpins the Tory Message and suggests that the Tories should ’stoke it all the way to the next election’. One [...]
Even though the site’s under construction it’s still better than Labialist.
Not difficult: so’s a blank screen.
D’Ancona loved Dave “mark one” (as he called him). So why does he now like what we might call Dave mark two? Unless he is just a brown nosing twerp. In which case why take any notice of what he says?
I wanna return to the main menu
Main menu reading at 24 for 2 hours
We need a Home button to get back to the main page otherwise you have to fart arse around with the back / forward arrows.
Ever thought about getting some help in lad?
Are you pissed again?
Dale is sweet, Holborn dramatic and Biassed BBC angry.
It’s not just important to you what you do with ya blooog laddy!
The Guardian
Germany and France reject Brown’s global economic recovery planAngela Merkel insists any further short-term fiscal stimulus should be up to individual governments, not the G20
I see trouble ahead..
I am very happy Guid0o’s back – word up lads!
seems ok to me guido
If this were Irish you’d see good dancers
One-huuundred-aand-eightyyy
Slime Ball Vaz caught and bowled by the Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1162213/Keith-Vaz-damning-letter-How-senior-Labour-MP-abused-position-help-crooked-lawyer-court.html
Damning evidence of how senior Labour MP Keith Vaz intervened in a court case on behalf of a crooked friend can be revealed today.
Mr Vaz wrote to a High Court judge trying to halt proceedings against a firm which had lavished hospitality on him and his family.
Astonishingly, he signed it in his official capacity as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which has a key role in law-and-order issues.
why hasn’t this vaseline guy done porridge?
Porridge? No point. He’d be out in 16 days to continue his community work.
Even Made the Toady Prog! Made us all laugh here.
Stop being cocky quick.
Is Brown bonkers?
No…he’s just a tosser
He never gets it right. Its inbuilt. I bet he was always awkward with girls, dropping things, tripping over his shoelaces. Waiting for his date at a bus stop with an advert for VD behind him. Accidently scratcing his CND badge so it looked like a Mercedes symbol..that kind of thing.
Kill the fucking threads – they are shit, crap and bollocks.
If order-order is to be a conferencing system rather than than a blog, you can count me out.
If people are more interested in commenting on others comments than your blog entry, let them fuck off and comment on the commenters own blog.
Don’t know who sold this idea to you – kill them, they are your enemy and ours.
vaz gets worse…..
Cheers
Marvellous
Brown may not be the most sane PM we have ever had, indeed, he might just be the one along with Mr. Blair that has caused the UK the most anguish in a decade at least if one is to ignore Mr. Heath. But then again I cannot stop to wonder and ask what have the tories to offer in his place? We have Mr. Cameron who is possibly the most ambiguous Pm-to-be that is not particularly helpful when trying to vote now is it?
I think Nigel Farage would make a fine P.M.
Anyone who doesn’t want to leave a nested reply, then don’t do it! Just go down to the bottom of the page and go fro the Leave a Comment box and reply there, as normal.
This is looking good, Guido.
Anybody fancy heckling Polly direct will have to pay £8 for a seat.
She’s playing the ADC Theatre, Cambridge, at 11.30am on Saturday 25 April.
https://www.adctheatre.com/diary.asp
£8 is pretty steep for just over an hour’s gig – she has to clear the stage for some philosopher at 1.00 – you normally get a full musical for that. The subject is :
Unjust Rewards: Polly Toynbee & David Walker
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, argue Guardian journalists, David Walker and Polly Toynbee in their powerful polemic, Unjust Rewards. As young city lawyers try to justify earning a hundred times more than teachers, they argue that recent trends in pay are not sustainable.
The case for fair pay has never been more urgent. A timely event, with two of Britain’s most astute political commentators.
Recession note:
The ADC theatre bar is the best place for drinks and minimal snacks, best freebie exhibition is the Fitzwilliam Museum a couple of blocks away.
How many more times than a a teacher’s wage does Polly earn? ‘Spect that’s different.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
well, she should know.
“Polly Toynbee is, Guido understands, on the books for £140,000 a year at The Guardian. 2006.”+ speaking engagements, media appearances and her book should get her up to at least 1/2 million. The average teacher earns 26,000. so 10-20 times salary is ok Polly? Thats quite fortunate.
Con Home has something to add to that debate!
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/03/a-modest-propos.html
“Dont let us get into it this way”
Polly Toynbee
I wonder whether Potty Toyperson has a clause in her contract now which prevents her appearing in the same studio as Littlejohn.
OK…….. if my fav. 3 liters of white lightning is now going to cost me £6 , who gets the £3 , and how is it going to be done …. ?
From now on I want it in a glass bottle … make it taste a bit better ..and more useful for defending my cardboard box …
and better for molotov’s … too …. when it hits 4 mill.
preparation for defense ..thats strategy… that is ….. isn’t it !
Not only is this fucking cretin a Hoon
Hes a Ginger Hoon
Ha! They can ease my arse.
VG
See you had this up in January. well spotted amongst all the denials
just testing Hoon and hoon. see how it works
hoon and hoon. Wow. lets try with Kith Vadge
keith vadge oopps
Asking a Scotchlandic nonce to say ’sorry’ is akin to asking an Albanian rapist to say ‘please’.
The old “reply” business tends to encourage chats within a chat, and then points made by way of a reply tend to get repeated later as substantive arguments. Just a personal view, but I prefer the long stream of comments. Much easier to follow.
I agree
I don’t
I’m not sure
So what’s really so terribly wrong with political assassination. It works in other countries. It nearly worked in Westminster all those years ago…
For better or worse Dave is going to be handed the Holy Grail of post war British politics
He’s going to acheive office without the tiresome need to explain what he intends (if anything) to do with it
Oooh I say this new interweb type format thingy is rather smart
Surely the only time the Conservatives need to make known their policies is when the General Election is called? Doing so earlier just lets the “government of all the tossers” cherry-pick good ideas (or those which might have sound-bite appeal).
There are things they can announce that can’t be cherry picked, e.g.
* Cancel trident (I’m not against per se, but we don’t need to spend the money now).
* Scrap ID cards (rumoured to have been promised, but given politician’s ability to lie, I want to hear it at least once a week.
* Lisbon referendum, whether or not Ireland says Yes – argue the case that a nutter signed us in without promised consultation.
* NHS database – scrap it. Something small that is secure and works ONLY.
* Cancel the olympics – utter fucking waste of money
* Repeal all the authoritarian labia rules, start work on reducing laws.
etc
etc
Paraphrasing Chomsky from 40 years ago:
If someones claim to leadership is founded on their knowledge and technique, then their claim will be damaged by honesty as to the limitations of their knowledge and technique, by lack of work to do and by demonstrable mistakes.
Thats Brown down to a tee that is – dishonesty about his knowledge (particularly future projections), active intervention where none is needed (making work), and a refusal to acknowlege past mistakes.
Will we ever learn? (probably not while socialists run our schools!!)
Dave is right to apologise. They (the Tories) should have been more up-front about the insanities of Brown’s economic policy from 2001 onwards. When it became apparent that he was borrowing 30bn a year and that even our runaway consumer borrowing and squandering wasn’t generating enough jobs and taxes to pay the 1,000,000 public service box-tickers he’d created.
Instead he and his party judged that the voters were too delicate to be told the truth and that votes would accrue for promising to be even more economically incontinent than Brown. Hence pledges to spend even more money we didn’t have.
If the Tories had been honest waaaay back in 2001 then by now they’d have their inbuilt ‘right’ to the next election nailed on because they would have been advocating fiscal prudence for a good nine years come the election as opposed to being Johnny-come-lately with their discovery of financial sense.
You have to remember that Brown is banking on the unceasing stupidity of the financially uneducated who really do believe that Brown tells the truth when he blames the yanks and the bankers. That all this economy needs is another few hundred billion quid borrowed and printed from fresh air and we’ll be back to the perpetual economic up-lands of ever-increasing house prices, foreign holidays and new Plasma TVs. And we never, ever have to pay anything back. Just like the years 2001 – 2008.
As well as the financially illiterate, there are also the ranks of the borderline Marxists/Trotskyists (who cannot forgive the US for winning the cold war), the terminally envious and the incorrigibly gullible (who are constantly pandered to by that organ of ‘inestimable impartiality’ (hawk, spit), the BBC).
I live in fear of the State(ist) Broadcaster winning it for NuLabour.
Keith Joseph? also known as “the Mad Monk”
ha ha ha ha ha ha
Now you really are talking bonkers, Guido take a look at him!
You lot are really unbelievable.
Pray what exactly was Cameron saying ’sorry’ for?
Tra laa!
Hi Ambrose; why don’t we all take at him? Here’s a potted history of Keith Joseph and look forward to hearing what upsets ZNL so.
Keith Joseph Bio
Re Dave’s apology I think you’ll find it’s a gesture that plays reasonably well as a contrast to the foul tempered Great Leader.
Google “mad monk” and “Keith Joseph”, 196 results. But look at the eyes, those eyes can’t hide it. Just look! Mad as a March Hare!
Cameron’s apology was for what?
Nobody knows, because it was vacuous PR spin.
“Please look at me too, not just at Darling at the G20 Finance thingy, please.”
Unfortnately his PR handlers are hamfisted dimwits, he always comes across as a footnote, which ironically is all he will be.
Tra laa!
Found this, which I think is true
“Mr Cameron acknowledged failings by previous Conservative governments by saying some “fundamental” weaknesses in the economy pre-dated Labour’s period in office.”
Tra laa!
Ambrose doesn’t know what ‘fundamental’ means, it seems. If there are fundamental weaknesses then they form the base from which everything else originates, which means that no government can do anything about them. All anyone can do is try to negate those weaknesses. I would venture to suggest that running up our national debt into the trillions isn’t the smartest thing to do in this regard. Gordon thinks that ’sound money’ is royalties paid to musicians.
Lesson over.
Reply to 137.
Your definition of fundamental is wrong.
Illiteracy can be a fundamental weakness in an economy, it can be overcome by education.
Try and stay awake.
Tra laa!
If a weakness can be overcome then it’s not fundamental; it’s temporary. Fundamental weaknesses are always there and you can’t do anything about them except try and minimise their impact. Illiteracy would only be a fundamental weakness in an economy if you had no way at all, ever, of improving literacy.
Lesson over.
“But if we’re honest, we must also recognise that some of our economic difficulties today relate not only to what has happened in the last ten years, but also to certain fundamental weaknesses that have been there for decades.”
“So here is the truth: whoever wins the general election, the next government of this country will need to make a clean break with the past and set about fixing these fundamental economic weaknesses.”
But of course I have yet to be taught by “Stop the Waugh Coalition”
Save, save, save
Can’t borrow out of a recession
What we need is a credit guarantee scheme
Small businesses are collapsing because of a lack of credit
I’ll say anything any time any place anywhere
What’s got us in to this is too much borrowing, the last thing we need is more borrowing
Of course we need a fiscal stimulus package
When Dave says ‘fixing’ he means ‘negating the damage that Labour have done by ignoring fundamental weaknesses’, i.e. that an economy eventually collapses if you grow it based upon debt. This is all you can do, and is what I said in the first place. As for self-contradicting soundbites, welcome to politics-speak. Remember what Gordon said about civil servants leaking when Damian Green was arrested? He’d taken a rather different view a few years previously…
“Funny eyes” indeed, I hope your boss didn’t spot your faux pas. Regarding Google I don’t think you can rely on this without checks and balances; for example upon googling “Ambrose Silk” I got 205,000 results out of which one of the most interesting was this one from the online version of The Hindu newspaper (author M.S. PRABHAKARA on 21/10/08):
“Ambrose is a more appealing figure of authentic comedy and farce … haunted by his vulnerabilities, Ambrose is induced by his publisher-friend to join the vast bureaucracy of the Ministry of Information, full of literary people producing morale-boosting literature.”
Nice one!
Psychosis is something that shows in the eyes, especially of Keith Joseph.
Google just “Keith Joseph” and you get 66,000 results, look at number 4. This is the man deluded DeKencona Spectator man wants to associate with Scameron.
Regarding Scameron’s so called apology, any idea what it was for?
Unfortunately Keith Joseph was a fact, fortunately Ambrose Silk is a fiction.
Tra laa!
Nope Ambrose, there is no commonly accepted medical correlation between psychosis and the appearance of the sufferer’s eyes. I repeat that this is dodgy ground given the countenance of your Dear Leader and your Mr Draper’s, er, professional background. I don’t think in our “multi-cultural and inclusive” society we can still go round saying things like “that man is a loony, just look at his eyes”. The apology was a gesture as mentioned earlier and I am happy to note that Ambrose Silk is fiction; a front on here I guess for at least three different people. Interesting and fun at times but ultimately daft.
Fucking great hair though, Keith Joseph.
The first test for Call Me Dave and the Boy George will be the cull of the public sector and whether the Tories will flunk it or not. Everything else will or will not fall into place thereafter.
I wish that were true.
A simple ‘cull’ will not work. The people who need to be axed are, more often than not, in well-defended positions. It is the non-unionised middle rankers and the less indoctrinated juniors who would be offered up as sacrifice, to maintain the less productive core.
Yep. That’s the truth. Plus the pay cuts that the remainder will have to take. A public sector ‘pay freeze’ doesn’t work because they have a pay-scale that they automatically march up every year in any case. What with them being so much better at their job year-on-year.
Of course the Tories dare not float this idea now because all the million extra voters that Brown hired with borrowed money would be dedicating their every moment to keeping their personal gravy train on the rails. A lot like the Labour government of occupation. Naaaah. Cameron will have to be very cagey. Just allude to ‘difficult choices’ like the government but, unlike the government, actually take some ‘difficult’ decisions instead of pretending that we can simply print money, keep everybody employed at ever-increasing salaries, that everybodies house will increase in price for ever and if we all continue to believe in fairies then this economy can just reprise its previous state of perpetually borrowed nirvana.
Actually I think we’re screwed. The damage may already be irreversible and although the next election is for the Tories to lose then they could do worse than tell the truth and be damned. Because Brown and Labour are clearly determined to lie, lie and lie again and it is the Tories fear of telling the truth and, by default, aligning themselves with the Labour liars over their insane spending plans that has allowed Brown to get away unchallenged to this point. As we see, even now, 28% – 30% still think that Brown is doing a fine job. I could weep.
I prefered the old blog format, Guido.
Of Cameron’s ‘prime mentalist’ strategy. It’s a good one simply because it’s true.
As for consensus – the longer to the next election the better. Hardship will be laid at Brown’s door and the electorate will cry out for drastic action by this time.
Of course the danger of Cameron saying sorry (a good tactic) is that many people are stupid enough to think that he caused it all.
Will he now say sorry for his part in the immigration crisis ? Law and order ? Iraq ???
A side point:
How can anything be clear to people who get and read CCHQ briefing? Spin Haze, thy name is Cameronian.
Cull everyone except productive workers. That, of course, means an end to bureaucrats, managers, journalists, commentators… and ‘the rich’, it almost goes without saying.
OT but on Crack Down on Tax Havens I posted that we should look out for a Cod War style approach to small countries providing legal services as a smoke screen for McBroon to be going after some offshore cash to boost the Treasury coffers (next step: a patch over the dead eye). Lo and behold I receive the following today UK “Inspectors” On Cayman. Avast ye me hearties! Etc, more to come…
Have you not got:
TARGET=”_blank”>a new window Mr Fawkes?
have I got to hold a button down as well as click the mouse?
Anon 11.37
You asked TARGET=_”blank” ;Have I got to hold button down as well as click mouse?
Answer ; Neither will do any good until the coordinates for Vladivostock are entered by the ships Principal Warfare Officer.
DON’T THEY TEACH YOU ANYTHING AT DARTMOUTH ??????
Apologise for not having ANY policies, but apologise for something over which you had no care, custody or control of is madness. Dave, you have much to learn. Perhaps you could get a proper job in the real world before trying to be PM. Heaven help us all…..
The Conservatives should go with the “Brown is Mad” theme as it’s patently true. He’s an unstable, paranoiac who appears to be ready to drag us all into an economic Hell from which none of us is going to escape for many years to come. Perhaps a mass letter writing campaign to her Majesty, politely asking her to sack Gordo and force him to call an election now???
I agree with much that is written here however I wish that the anti-Scots rants would stop when items like this are said about Brown who is on record as considering himself to be a “North Briton” from “North Britain” anyway.
Don’t your readers realise that he is detested as much (if not more) in Scotland for what he has done to the UK?
Not very Scot is a political idiot or a drunk or a state benefit dependent addict and the reasons why Labour gets grass-roots support in Scotland has nothing to do with Scots wanting Brown as PM but due to a primeval fear of the Tories.
Its time that those south of the border who make these comments grew up .
Question:
How many Conservative MP’s represent a Scottish constituency?
Answer:
Nil
This will come as news to David Mundell, Conservative MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.
Ignorance. It’s what Labour relies on.
You are one of the 28% and I claim my five quid. I’ll take gold.
Fair point, perhaps (don’t know how hated the twunt is ‘up north’)
Perhaps if your MPs stopped fucking voting in stuff that doesn’t concern Scotland, you _might_ get a few less McMental comments…on the other hand perhaps it is too late
If you check Hansard you will find SNP MP’s have NEVER voted on purely Engish matters in Westminter – the SNP has always done the honourable thing and abstains.
he reasons why Labour gets grass-roots support in Scotland has nothing to do with Scots wanting Brown as PM but due to a primeval fear of the Tories.
A 30 year Labour and union leadcampaign of hate towards the Tories who shut down all those loss-making mines and ship-yards has rather skewed the thinking though. Labour thought they’d successfully poisoned y’all so much that they’d guaranteed a 1000 year Labour Reich in Scotland hence their rush for devolution. So confident were they that you could be relied upon to vote Labopur for ever and ever Amen.
I have to say the look on Jack McConnells face was almost worth voting SNP to see. But in the end I contented myself with simply fleeing south of the border. Scotland is one independence vote away from North Korea. The political race to the bottom in Scotland will be to promise as much non-existent money to as many wasters as possible. In the interests of ‘fairness’ and Scottish ‘fair play’ you understand.
Hellaceous. No thanks.
The situation may be so dire when the Tories win, that Cameron’s preferences are irrelevant. He may have very little room for maneuver.
Thought I’d pop by and check out the new format. Yes. I’m a Hoon. Still.