The Last Honourable Labour Prime Minister
Guido was only 12 years old when Margaret Thatcher came to power. The original memories have been blanketed over the decades by the re-runs of video footage. Watching some of the BBC Parliament channel’s re-broadcast of that election day, something that came through was the fundamental decency of James Callaghan. He came over in much the way that John Major did, as an honourable man doing his best in difficult circumstances. Not something that can be said of his current successor.
Its the money
Perhaps Mr Brown is less a Prime Minister of a democracy – and more a Stalinist Thug running a mob operation.
Less Callaghan, more Kim Il Sung.
Brown is nothing more than a bully. I would not put him along side Callaghan, Thatcher and others who at least had a minium intelligence and belief in democracy and cabinate based administration.
Brown is a Soviet commisar in the mould of Breshnev.
Thumping good sense! Is it not clear that Brown’s Commie Stalinist tendencies were to the fore when he promised change,change,change and then proceeded to copy everything Blair did. Bafflingly the public didn’t seem to appreciate this.
Blair had no stalinist or Red tendencies, dear me NO! He was never a control freak who smeared those who stood in his way. Indeed it’s not as if Mandelson or Campbell are working for Brown now. Such an idea would be preposterous.
We can all see past the spin and it’s not that Brown presides over a crippling Recession that has the great Biritsh Public up in arms, it is the fact that Brown is a Stalinist and worst of all, but fearlessly pointed out here time and again, he is a caledonian cyclops!!
Call me Dave will base his entire Election P.R. on this uniocular outrage and the British people will rise as one against his disgusting affliction. (though he might put a couple of things about the Recession in there too one wouldn’t wonder.)
He was never a control freak who smeared those who stood in his way.
That’s because he had others to do it for him.
‘Ere, leave it out!
I think the fury that the British people (most of them) have expressed toward Gordon Brown, is principally that they feel they are the victims of a massive confidence trick, which started in 1997 and continues to this day. The deceit being that Gordon Brown is a giant of the financial world and bestrode the UK economy like a colossus.
He clearly has no feel for supply side economics, but is a traditional tax and spend labour chancellor, fully au fait with spending and borrowing, a bit like my wife in fact, not too bothered where the money comes from. Now we have Harriet Harman in the frame to replace him, this women is fully pursuing the implementation of the Equality Act, which will push a lot of small firms over the edge, I guess small firms closing at 120 per week is just not enough.
Any chance of getting somebody to run our economy who can do a few simple sums.
they adress each other as the right honorable! there isnt an honourable person in there.
hear,hear. couldn’t agree more
[Bliar] was never a control freak who smeared those who stood in his way.
Er, what ? Mo Mowlam ? The BBC ?
BBC reports a David Cameron speech but still tries to get a Labour dig in at the end of the piece, introducing Ed with No’Ball.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8033104.stm
BBC will still continue supporting the Bully Boys until the Licence is removed, the first step form David would be to give the fee payer an opt-in clause. Remove compulsion.
Francis Maude in the Observer over his dalliance with packaging garbage mortgages and ‘debt consolidation’.
Observer got it from Guido!
Sub-prime greaseball, caught out, loses FSA registration.
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
he is very embarassed about the Observer article on his Chairmanship of a failed mortgage packager and securitizer.
24,000 a year, that’s so embarassing, now everyone knows how cheap he is.
If there had been stricter financial regulation he wouldn’t have been able to take a directorship in a skuzz ball company like Prestbury.
Callaghan respected Parliament unlike the current mob.
‘Thatcher and others who at least had a minium intelligence and belief in democracy and cabinate based administration’
Err what? The end of cabinet based adminstration was brought about by Thatcher, thats why they kicked her out
I think that fundamentally there has been a huge shift in society. I am younger than you Guido, not by much, but I was only 5 when Maggie got into power so only ever knew the Tories and really did not take much notice until 1997 when I voted for Blair (hangs head in shame). My mum told me that as a student I would do better under Labour (How wrong she was and my mum is very clever lady). Well now I know both parties and can honestly say that I will always vote for those that I see as similar in intellectual and gentlemanly capacity.
I live my life by my moral code book which is the one that I have taken from my parents and grand parents albeit bastardised it to suite my modern needs (I could never see my granddad or my dad getting off his tits at a rave). Sure I might lie a little to make a camp fire story funnier or more interesting but I cannot lie for pure deception or manipulation (there are exceptions to this but fuck the police eh) . I am a bit of a romantic and still love the old ways they just make everything easier and decisions are always simple.
Sadly I think this era that we find ourselves in has produced a nihilistic culture that has no time for common purpose or values. There are many reasons that I could go into as to why this is but I reckon most on this site know what I am getting at. The fact is you see someone like William Hague speaking, you know where the guy is coming from. Not just you understand what he saying but the very way that he express himself or carries himself. And I don’t want this to be a class thing either, although class is good breeding, but not necessarily money, it is about upbringing. This present lot (Labour obviously) I am afraid with a few exceptions are as common as muck, they have no dignity or manners and to be honest are not fit to shine my fucking shoes.
The truth is they have a huge chip on their shoulders because they do not come from good stock and think that money and power will give them that. They are so wrong, because I see this everywhere people that have made huge fortunes over the past 20 years and now think that they are superior in every way (this sadly is the message they give their kids). Unfortunately they have had to sell their soul for this money and so they are corrupted. Corrupted by miss education and have been hypnotized my wealth. You see what it all boils down to in the end is what the younger generation will look up to and respect, Whilst I would would respect a gentleman and scholar, many would respect wealth and power, and many I am afraid have punched well above their station.
I fear that I am a dying breed. In the end its all down to good fucking manners. And we can see this lot, how they fuck each other at every turn the back stabbing and the deceitfulness. The truth is that half of them if they were gentlemen would have resigned years ago but they don’t. And that really tells the whole story. I guess we will have to wait and see if we can turn the tide back but I surmise that we can only go forward. To what I really don’t know but I hope that it is something that better than what we have now.
I think once these blogs are refined we will get a more honest system.
Yeah, I’m with you there, Blake’s7 – well said. These power-crazed oikers don’t understand that the essence of good manners is consideration for others. Without that, their ‘manners’ are just window dressing. Fundamentally dishonest and dishonourable.
I’d like to meet miss education so she can corrupt me too.
thought full post blakes 7
jim callaghan was what you might have called a gentleman , country first ,seeking to be charitable .It was unfortunate that he lost to millitant unionism which just wanted power and never did give any explantion of the end of there usurping.
If i may add , it is strange thing when you think about what labour have done , at first you just see the loss of innocence which seems harmless enough , but then you realise that the level of morality is going. i was at a pub , when i overheard a fevered conversation “er take alook at this” this bloke then lit up his mobile phone with some sort of video clip for the viewing woman “oh my god ” she then went all funny and said thats awful ( i think it was of an animal getting run over) , realising that having introduced the lads macho veiwing to his intended wooing victim and it had gone wrong , he was stumbling (oh shit its not funny think of somthing else) .
now when labour have created a society where its funny to see animals explode , painful sexual acts performed all on your mobile phone , you may well think where does this go ??
caesars wife thinks labour have done somthing truly awful which is not just leading to antipolitics but a loss of morality leading to sinister mind sets .
having see what dennis macshane has said i have been to rotherham and labour have totally runied its town centre and it has this scary big TV screen in the middle of it (orwell or what) , its now one of these disco bar nightclub towns , just one big labour drugs injection machine . you dont notice it if your young , you just see pubs clubs raves and music . but when it becomes all there is to a town .
i think weve all been having this massive cheap piss up whilst labour have been changing the sets and scenary to ready us for Europe and socialism.
they dont want you to speak , have any different views , think there is anything wrong with what they do , put the stasi on you , spy on you .Its all wonk.
more worryingly i dont think it will ever work , i mean eds weird annoucement on forcing computer skills on primary children , so what happens when they have to function without one ??? if they are even supposed to that is !!
it just amazes me , six banks bust economy in tatters and all the devisive social experiments going , and then they wonder why people are going to give them the boot and hate them .
they have corrupted decent life into a mere pop concert .
why he doesnt say ok let the people decide which route they want and return some democracy, shows to me how bloody lost they are up there own arse .
blunkett reckons he should use some common sense , being as labour have created the enviroment for common sense to have about as much traction as darlings growth figures , hes alienated everyone .
i think labour have truly gone and broke it this time , be a right job sorting this out , no one i know will be voting labour as they all feel they have done somthing for want of better word, evil and corrupt.
Top Ten Hoons and Hoon Organisations in the UK
to supplement Blake’s Seven comments.
1. Gordon Snotgobbler.
2. Harriet Hoon.
3. Sharon Shoonsmith and Haringey Council.
4. Hooner-Fuck.
5. BBC.
6. The No 10 Hoon-Hub: McBride, Maguire, Draper, Whelan, Watson.
7. Polly Hoon.
8. Baroness Hoondini.
9. Fred Hoonwin.
10. The Guardian.
10.
Beautifully put Blake’s 7. It pretty much boils down to common decency, a desire to better oneself, a respect and healthy interest in the knowledge and skills of others and a strong sense of history. People like William Hague clearly have these qualities, we also see them in Barack Obama. Compare a straight talking, eloquent statesman like Obama to an interfering, junior Stalinist piss-ant such as Hazel Blears or James Purnell. The gulf is indescribable. Christ knows where this mythical affiliation with Obama and the Democrats comes from. They’ve been twinned with Karl Rove and Dick Cheiney for nearly a decade.
The lack of these fundamental human qualities amongst our shit flicking gang of imposters and political joyriders enables them to behave the way they do with ease. They see the electorate as gullible cartoon cretins, stalking them at every turn, quietly morphing the police into their political bouncers, cluelessly turning foreign countries into death machines, embezzling from the people they supposedly serve to fund luxury lifestyles whilst cynically using these same life styles as class war ammo against their opponents. The kind of people who can brazenly declare that free flowing online opinion is “causing a culture of despair” (Blears), whilst not realising that it is their special brand of cynical double-think and carefully sculpted horseshit that causes the real culture of despair.
So after contributing heavily to the “culture of despair”, here’s an idea. The entire cabinet should all be forced to study astronomy for a year so they get some perspective on just how small and insignificant they are compared with the rest of the Universe. Afterwhich they should be dressed in Union Jack boiler suits, given a butter knife each and air dropped into Iraq. This is something that would definitely appeal to my “British sense of fairness” (Blears 2009).
I agree with you. We are about the same age and i have 2 young kids now. It’s all about manners. Wealth is not important, but being civilised is. This country is full of people who have “rights” and demand “respect” because Labour say they should have them. Respect is something to be earned, not a given right. Labour don’t see this. I think the Tories do.
You make some good points. I would add into the mix 2 related but seperate points.
1).Ted Heath had major problems with the unions, but never did he see crushing their power as an option. Heath’s politics were within the framework and understood the importance of integrity.
2). The behaviour of today is directly related to the consumerist society we live in. Bombarded with materialistic messages, and advertising slogans such as “make your friends green with envy” and constantly promoting this materialistic society influences many people. More recently these property shows , which illustrate people’s madness, have participants quite openly saying how much they have to spend and demonstrate no fundamental principles of discreteness and humility. They also make people think they are missing out on something and thus people take great economic risks.
Yes , people have become very materialistic, greedy and corrupt, BUT it is not everybody. Old fashioned values still do exist.
Sounds as though you’d have been more at home growing up in the late 50s and early 60s as I did. Never forget: Heath was the prize wanker who delivered us into the clutches of the EU, hoon that he was!
I agree with many of the commentators on this blog. Where I guess I we part of company. I am passionate about Europe and fully support the EC. I do not undersatnd why people do not see that Europe is the future. We should have joined the Euro and we should be at the forefront of the European agenda. I am sorry the anti – Europe stance is based on a Little Englander mentality. Because of the European ideals, you are all free to go, live and work in another EC country and to be treated as an equal citizen in the EC country that you might find yourself in.
Blake7 what a moron. Posting on Guido’s blog about his love for good manners?!?
is there any limit to human stupidity?
I can make a good stock.
213 You don’t have to agree with Guido to post on this blog.
Tell me your IQ and I’ll answer your question about stupidity.
Very well said B7
It is the sameful lack of manners and decent behaviour in society – to be polite and well mannered is to be weak at best and a toff at worst.
Class envy is a dreadful thing and produces bad governments.
Blakes 7 – Excellent piece and spot on. There are a lot of people who think like you, so don’t worry too much.
This bunch of nasty people we call our government are basically deeply flawed characters in that they have profound physcological problems such as feelings of social inferiority. This is why they destroy anything that’s good; because it shows them up for the ‘thick’ unsophisticated bastards they are. The problem is that their way will NOT work and will eventually lead to chaos and civil unrest. We are beginning to see that start of this at the moment with the slow collapse of the country’s infrasctructure.
Nulabour’s idealogies and philosophies cannot possibly work because they go against human nature and are immoral.
I see their lies are working regarding ‘green shoots’ and the economy picking up. Of course it is all nonsense and hot air and the slight boost to the stockmarket is probably due to the BofE printing money a few weeks ago.
Nulabour continue to deceive the people. We must make sure when they are ousted from power, they NEVER return. They are evil and destructive people.
(yes I am a Hoon / no I am not Nu Labour) says:
What do you have against good manners?
You’re clearly a ‘dumbed down’ nulabour idiot (despite telling us you’re not!) who has very little concept of what makes the world and human beings tick.
Get thee to a phsyciatrist……and quick!! You need help!
The chip on the shoulders of so many of this government comes from the fact that they are by and large out of their depth and they know it. Criticism from the Tories usually hits then hard therefore as they do not have the capacity to come up with a meaningful response to it. Instead all we get is spin, parrot fashion such as ‘The do-nothing party, The Bullington club, Cuts’ and most recently from Neil Kinnock; ‘If you don’t vote for us in June you’ll let the BNP in.’ Meanwhile as they cling on remorselessly to their pay packets and expense acounts, this country stumbles on with businesses collapsing into bankruptcy, jobs being lost at an almost unprecedented rate and a looming level of national debt that is threatening to turn us into a bananna republic.
Top post Blake 7. PLEASE cut and paste it over to labourlist.org.
One small step for mankind etc ….
Funny (i.e. NOT), I’ve been banging on about this degradation in social behavior and morality for about 10 years, just ask my girlfriend.
Put here more verbosely by others than I usually do, but I see we all agree that the corrosive drip drip drip of such slime as Mandelson and Campbell et al in the media and daily life has degraded us to the social level of the former Soviet Union. Anyone who’s spent time there will agree that the level of corruption, large and small, and the casual acceptance of violence and poverty now seem like a glimpse of our future.
Now what we need is a plan to fix things…
To Blake’s 7
You say you are a dying breed, I would say not, what you say resonates with me, and most people I know think along similar lines. I think the British people have been sleepwalking for too long but are beginning to wake up to the full horror of NuLab. A year ago I was not the least bit interested in economics or politics, but I am now.
Blake’s 7 that’s very well put.
Well said. Sadly people like you are the minority in NuLab’s Britain.
godd manners, body language, see the difference btw Hannan and Gordon, + “THIS IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO” dzillion times a day + jaw dropping (could have corrected it by now but morons never learn) + needs serious plastic surgery, a face off really . This guy is white trash.
Blake’s 7,
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
I understand where Blake7 is coming from and believe me, I would have agreed with every word up until a few weeks ago.
Now I see that ALL Ministers and are merely directors of the United Kingdom Corporation and they are only there to create revenue for the banks. Every MP is a company. Every government agency is a company and elections are only to decide which directors get to set policy (statute) to enforce upon us (the employees by NI number) in order to generate revenue. Government is NOT there to look out for you, or uphold the law anymore. It was once, but has not been since 1600.
Now the House of Lords, the House of Commons, all local authorities, all councils etc. are ALL companies acting in canon law to generate revenue.
It matters not who are the actors, acting in Parliament, to create Acts and statues upon juristic and natural persons and entrap people into liability in contracts for upon which they have never given their open and free consent, but consent has been assumed. These statutes only replace the common law with the CONSENT of the governed. If you do not consent, and you reject your person, then these statutes do not apply. Only common law applies.
Consensus Facit Legem. Consent makes the law. That is a legal maxim. A legal maxim is a statement of indisputable legal fact. YOU must CONSENT for the statute (canon, law of the seas) to carry the force of law.
The actors in Parliament should be utterly irrelevant to our freedom. The Government uses statutes to generate revenue. What is a bill? It is a demand for money. What happens when they present a bill to the court (Parliament)? They estimate how much revenue can be created from a statute and then use that estimate as collateral borrow money against. They then create a “law” (statute) that is so difficult to adhere to that it will steal revenue from law abiding, peaceful, honest people. People that have not cause injury, harm or loss (not committed a CRIME in law) are then financially penalised solely for the benefit of the corporation.
With the enormous amount of debt created by Government, do you think that ANY political party is in anyway going to reduce the ridiculous and over-the-top statutes and petty laws, by-laws and rules that generate them revenue?
NO political party is addressing the central fraud in all of this legal system. That we are ALL fraudulently contracted to act in representation of a fiction created by stealth at the event of our berth (and I use that spelling deliberately) as evidenced by our Birth Certificate. A creation of a corporate entity that has NO ability to act in commerce or trade or obey the laws of the sea as it is STATIONARY and requires the presence of a flesh and blood man to honour the contracts which are placed upon the person (fiction) by tacit acceptance or acquiescence. That corporate identity created at berth and then the legal title thereof (ownership) is handed over to the Government (GRO) by way of registration. Hence why it is lawful for the Government to remove children from their parents, even when they are at NO RISK OF HARM. The Government are taking back their legal property.
The Government are taking children to ORDER so that they can generate revenue.
We NEED, as a matter of utmost certainty, honourable free men to come to the aid of this free country and to stand as local independent candidates in the general election to END this disgusting fraud and deception against ALL OF US.
We need the United Kingdom to become a country and a country of LAW again, instead of a purely revenue generating corporation.
http://www.tpuc.org
Jimmy 194 you said: I do not undersatnd why people do not see that Europe is the future. We should have joined the Euro and we should be at the forefront of the European agenda. I am sorry the anti – Europe stance is based on a Little Englander mentality.
This makes my blood boil. How dare you call me a Little England because I am opposed to the un-democratic and corrupt EU. The only people I have ever met who are enthusiastic about the EU are those with vested interests. Are you one of those?
Well said Blake’s 7. I read eleswhere in the blog that some people don’t believe Sunny Jim was an honourable man because he believed in socialism. Now while I agree that socialism is a flawed ideology, I can still accept that ’socialists’ can be decent people.
When I had a car accident (not my fault!) in one of my cities’ tougher council estates people were keen to help and one family took me and my son in for a cup of tea while we waited for the recovery people to turn up. They were ordinary, decent, people. They are still around, they are still friendly and willing to help, at all ‘levels of society’.
Of course the real shits are there too, and unfortunately the current government attitudes to wealth, celebrity, and personal responsibility have given some sort of social endorsement of poor behaviour. This is partly due to the fawning before the wealthy (which government has enobled so many Scottish bankers?) and partly the deep distrust and criminalisation of ‘ordinary people’. After all many people, if called a criminal often enough, will say ‘Why the hell should I be decent if I’m not trusted anyway!’
There is also the deliberate removal of social criticism. People feel that they can’t express criticism of poor behaviour without getting tagged unfairly as a ‘racist’ or a non-PC ‘throwback’ to an earlier age. Who has made this happen – too many victim organisations who shelter under the left wing umbrella. There is a subtle difference between challenging unfair discrimination and allowing no criticism at all.
But deep in my heart I still think there are many decent people willing to stand up for good manners and good behaviour. They just need to be protected from the unfair, carping, and spiteful criticism that is the current regimes’ natural reaction to anything non-PC.
Spot on Blake’s 7.
On the subject of honour, which is something that we all seem to agree that the current lot do not have – it seems to me that this can be traced not to class in the accepted sense, but to education.
I went to a fee paying public school and received what I considered to be a properly rounded education. Putting aside the purely acedemic, we were taught respect for those around us regardless of social background and that if we wanted to respected we had to earn that respect from others. We were taught the concepts of fair play, decency, politeness and honour.
Coming away with armoury, I have always tried to live by those codes (admittedly not always sucessfully) and have instilled them into my own two sons.
So, what of the current group of government politicians? I know very little about their individual educational background except for Charles Clarke who went to the same school as I did. It does seem clear that some fundementals are missing from their backgrounds.
It’s interesting to note that the very people who invoke ‘class war’ are those who themselves have very little class in the educational sense.
Do you see David Cameron, William Hague or George Osbourne throwing claas war slurs at the Labour benches? No you don’t!
All you get from Labour is sideways digs at privelage, Bullingdon Club and toffs.
There is nothing wrong with being able to speak clearly, intelligently and politely! (John Prescott please note!!)
Tony Blair (Fettes educated) for all his faults was at least able to argue his point without scraping his langauge from the gutter.
The sooner we get a government in power that can reestablish a sense of honour and decency into the politics of this country the better.
That government will never be a Labour government.
SUCKMYCOCKYOUDIRTYFUCKINGWHORESHIT!!!!!!!!!
BASTARD TIT-WANK! SPUNKBUCKET!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry about that.
I’m not going to sit by and let people laud a Socialist.
The only reason people are saying things like ‘Callaghan was a decent bloke’ is because the veneer of true Socialism, that is mind-destroying collectivism, destruction of civil liberties, crushing control and a sickening ‘we know best’, so do as we say, not as we do do’ attitude has been writ large with the lying thieves that are the current government.
With that evidence so clear in front of people, some feel they must look back to a ‘golden age’ when perhaps, just perhaps, the Labour party was something better.
All Socialism leads to totalitarianism. It’s simply a matter of time. See http://www.mises.org/TRTS.htm for more details.
All politicians are after power, it’s just when Socialists get it, the results are truly horrific.
Actually its a good thing this marxist socialist shower have been in power for so long.
All their evil social engineering and infantilising of society, hopefully means anyone with half an eye open is now fully innoculated against downlevellers like the one-eyed, Scottish imposer playing at being PM, and will relegate Liebour to the rankest rubbish bin of history – for ever.
Long may the perverted, corrupted pseudo-socialism of small-minded, greedy, envious labourites be buried.
….and while on here when is Mr Politicised Plod planning to arrest the ghastly Uddin creature for theft?
Seconded. Just because someone has good personal manners, that doesn’t obviate their deplorable belief system. Socialism is the single most destructive ideology to blight mankind.
115; Quite correct.
Jim Callaghan was the avuncular front-man for a sinister movement. Lurking behind his smooth manner and smiling face were some seriously nasty pieces of work. Healey was as bad as any of them (“We’re going to squeeze the rich until the pips squeak”), Hattersley, Wedgewood Benn and let’s not forget Michael Foot. And that was just the political wing. There were the Unions as well. Odious people like Scargill, David Basnet, Len Murray, Ray Buckton and Moss Evans, poised to bring Britain to a sudden and screeching halt whenever they chose.
I remember thinking at the time that if the Tories didn’t win the election in 1979 there might never be another one.
No, Callaghan was not a decent man. He knew he was just a stooge representing the face that Labour wanted to put forward to a gullible electorate.
Agreed. Callaghan was an imbecile, especially since he refused to dump that oaf Dennis Healey after the man had practically bankrupted the UK. Don’t forget that the only way that Callaghan did the ‘decent thing’ was after the Conservatives called a vote of no confidence and even the Labour whips finally refused to pull MP’s out of hospital to vote.
Anyone who recalls the 1979 winter of discontent would not regard Callaghan as honourable.
…only made worse when the beeboids are allowed to portray an evil , gullible , useful idiot such as tony benn, as a cuddly , harmless, institution.
Like many I remember those years under the old labour(ious) government when the numerous socialist power hungry wankers were dragging the nation to it’s knees for their own personal gain; after all isn’t a true socialist someone with nothing who wants to share it with every one? With the unions running roughshod over the economy, three day weeks etc it was with much relief that Maggie got to grips with the nation and slapped down the unions. If she is at all to blame for the demise of the coal and motor industries it is only because the unions hadn’t already destroyed them; you only have to look at Scargill, only a fucking idiot would see him as anything but a greedy power crazed lunatic intent on wresting power from a democratically elected government by any means. The old labour were as big a bunch of cnuts as the spin obsessed greedy bunch of cnuts we’ve got hogging power at the mo. If there is any difference it’s the fact that since TC Blair and his human rights lawyer wife got to the helm spin has taken to the forefront of their world, and much of that spin has been out an out lies. Did TC Blair ever abolish private schooling as he promised in his first election manifesto? Did he fuck, it was a lie to entice the voter. Did we ever get a referendum on Europe, did we fuck, they just did what they wanted on the sly, covering their tracks with spin legislation about fox hunting and teaching five years olds about gay sex. I groaned when this lot took power and have continued to groan everyday since their systematic destruction of the once stable economy. They are a bunch of self serving, power hungry, dishonest, corrupt, deceiving cnuts and the last lot of labour cnuts were just as bad only with less spin and the unions to accelerate the demise of the country.
Major was a traitor that sold us out to the EUSSR/NWO.
As well as being incompetant and sleeping behind his wifes back!
Fundermentally decent?
Compared to who – Hitler?
Stick to the corruption and smears Guido and give political comment a break.
You get it so wrong each and every time. It’s embarising for us regulars, we only come here for the sleaze!
We expect the politicians to be insulted NOT our intelligence!
yes those tories are so honorable in the bowler hats.
Guido was enraptured by Major’s vision of England as a land of cricket players on the village green and old ladies on bikes that he removed his unsightly self from the picture and went to live in MickLand
Interesting post B7.
I am older. Arrived UK 1977. Apalled. Dead unburied. Dead not buried. Grunwick. Scargill. Mick MacGaughy. Audrey Wise. Hatton. Strikes, civil commotion. No one in charge. Inflation 20%. Interest rates 16%. Gold 750% 3 pay rises a year. Exchange controls.
So I watched Election 79 alive. Watched again y’day.
On gentleman-academics. I trust you took in the interview of Keith Joseph by Robin Day. Joseph – mocked, derided, attacked as a loony by Labour, so soft spoken, to the point(but not point scoring), polite, erudite and modest. The architect of UK renaissance.
Then I switched to SkyNews to see Balls being interviewed and I saw immediateky why we are in the state we are in. He is a Labour politician first and last like his boss.
Yep, sums up my recollections too
Glad I was still at school
The best I can say for Callaghan is, his manner wasn’t appropriate to the situation that the country faced
There are no parallels between Brown and Callaghan except the blanket of Labour (Nu or otherwise). Callaghan realised the game was up and needed a mandate but he couldn’t control events…Brown needs a mandate and has no control of events but hasn’t been told the game is up
Shame Callaghan’s daughter isn’t a little more humble……..
Maybe SkyNews is part of the problem not just whatever dickhead they happen to being interviewing at a particular time.
I too am a little older, I started work in a small factory in 1977 and very quickly realised who ran the place: the two shop stewards, one for each union. They did no work, were incompetant when they did and richly deserved to be sacked but being ‘union’ they couldn’t.
It soon became a differant, and better, world. Shame the peace dividend in 1989 caused it’s demise, but that is a differant tale.
I too lived through the shite of the 70s. Miners strikes,3 day week etc.
I also remember the tv programme which went out a few days before the 79 election when Maggie went head to head with union leaders. Their view was that they would never allow her to govern,even if she won the election. So much for democracy.
Those who fermented the unrest of the 70s,or their disciples are now governing us. They are bully boys intent on gaining and preserving power at any cost. They do not give a shit about ‘hard working families’ or any one but themselves and their cronies. We are a means to an end.
Post Maggie they realised that they would need to disguise themselves as acceptable to gain power and the extremism infiltrated the Labour party. Blair provided the PR front and made the necassary compromises.( Look back at Ken Livingstone’s past and see where he came from as an example)
Do not vote for them again and let them finish the job.
“But at least he was an honest communist …”
Now THERE’s a tautology!
I knew someone who lived near Mick McGahey.
According to them, the ‘honest Communist’ was so true to his ideals (!) that he and his wife lived in a huge house, employing servants (so much for the exploitation of the masses) – maids who had to call them “Sir” and “Madam”.
Now the Marxists do not control our factories – have we any left anyhow? Now
they control our minds – it’s called Cultural Marxism. It’s why people go to prison for thought crime, why ‘minorities’ have rights of promotion irrespective of talent, why East Enders is culturally equivalent to Shakespeare. Time to look behind the curtain – there are the same people, posing as academics, posing as TV producers, posing as charitable benefacors, political party benefactors – they are not us – they are alien by instinct, by behaviour, by loyalty – they are traitors who should be driven out and never allowed to return in whatever guise they happen to adopt as the nouvelle vague.
They are all devoted to the party before anything else (apart from their own bank balances), it is the party that allows them to rape the tax payer for their expenses and keeps them in power. If the party had its way we’d not bother with elections and just keep circulating the premiership amongst the alpha-cast, they’ve done it once so they obviously don’t give a flying fuck about democracy. In their hearts they’re all only interested in power, the country is purely a vehicle on which to nurture their parasitic cravings.
3 pay rises a year
Our UK office at that time was getting a pay adjustment every month.
Just read a review of a biograpy of Friedrich Engels (Marxs’ buddy), apparently, he came from a wealthy family and earned the equivalent of £120,000 a year- of which he sent half to Marx, who was too grand to actually do any work,– seems these lefties are all the same, just in it for what they can grab!!
If “Its the money” then does anyone else recall Dennis Healey’s speech in 1973,
“I warn you that there are going to be howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 75% on their last slice of earnings”
… Just in case there is anyone under the misapprehension that Brown can not tax any higher.
And I suspect the fucking Hoon will do. We were discussing at work this morning what there is left to tax. We recon that luxury items such as bread and water will be next up for taxing, either that or the very air that we breath. Nu labour know that they’re on their way out so the working classes (those in-between the scrounging classes and political elite) must stand by for an arse fucking on the scale of several pineapples when the next budget (tax increase) comes to town. The Nu prefix has lost it’s power to deceive the masses into voting for the hoon party so old communist labour is back with vengeance. The age of tax and squander is about to get even worse.
Don’t be fooled by Callaghan or Wilson. both were old school class hate inbued Soviets.
Wilson was an Oxford-educated communist. He was imprisoned in 1940 when he refused, on Stalin’s orders to the britsh communist party, to do any war-related work. At this time, Joseph and Adolf were palsy-whalsy fellow socialists working together for the downfall of Jewish-controlled Capitalism. The Nazis only became right-wing devils when Adolf invaded Russia in 1941, when Wilson volunteered for war-related work and spent his war polishing a chair somewhere in the ministry of Labour, as it was then called.
Callaghan was a working-class man whose background came from the methodist wing of the Labour movement. what we would today call a Christian Socialist. Before the Atheist loony left took control, this was a perfectly respectable political position and the one my father took. The main aim of this wing was the improvement of the working class, and it was this wing which was responsible for the inaugeration of adult evening classes for the improvement of working class intellect, council housing, public libraries, allotments, and much more besides. Sunny Jim served most of the war as an H.O. petty officer on the Arctic convoys, and was certainly not, at this stage, in the grip of the soviets. I’m don’t think he ever was.
Whatever his attributes as a PM, he was certainly shafted by Wilson, whose sudden and largely unexplained resignation was probably because he read the economic forecasts and knew the game was up. Callaghan was merely simple. Wilson was the proto-hoon for the present shower. For the younger posters, the 50p piece was nicknamed a “Wilson” – two-faced and many-sided.
Wilson was an Oxford-educated communist. He was imprisoned in 1940 when he refused, on Stalin’s orders to the britsh communist party, to do any war-related work.
Never saw that before.
That Jacob Rees-Mogg still can’t spell or do statistics, and his sister is apparently a potted plant.
It was Stanley Baldwin.
Major, an honourable man doing his best in difficult circumstances? Are you having a giraffe? Major pushed ‘back to basics’ and his decent man-of-the-people image as he had ‘Ugandan discussions’ with she of the poisoned eggs. As far as honour in politics goes, I fear it’s a case of ‘not in this age, not in any age’ as JM might say…
Still don’t recall Major doing anything on the scale that the BBC (Blair, Brown, Callaghan) ever did. Having an affair? Was it with multiple secretaries, like Prescott? With mistreses working in the media, like Blunkett? No, it was on a very low-key scale with Edwina Currie and certainly it was kept discreet and out of the public eye.
I don’t think John Major even compares remotely with this bunch of corrupt Hoons. Amazing that the Labour nutjobs think that that’s the best they can do.
Baroness Uddins flat for rent on Ebay
Ebay – excellent! However, as both a peer and a Muslim presumably there is no copper in the land who is going to risk his pension delving into this apparent fraud? If anyone is untouchable then it’s this one.
Hear, hear.
Compare a straight talking, eloquent statesman like Obama
Jesus, you’ve really swallowed the funny stuff.
Yeah, that comment shocked me too. Here we are discussing the lying, cheating, two faced socialist conmen, and then someone comes along and contrasts them with Obama, another lying, cheating, two faced socialist.
John,
All true but you forgot to add “Who can only give a good speech in front of an autocue”.
Nicely covered over for Obama by the MSM…
Glad I’m not the only one that comes over ill whenever I hear Obamania strike; how so many can see him as the herald of change is beyond me. He is continuing the dangerous policies of his predecessor and too many are still blind to this.
Compare their economic strategies – print money and spend it at ever-increasing rates with what can only be some vain hope of hyperinflating out of debt.
Stance on war and the American empire – Obama is very much a war president, just check the defence budget and his overreaction to N. Korea’s rocket launch to name the latest examples of his position regarding conflict.
The Patriot Act – Obama has been very silent on this horrific piece of legislature, which just about nailed the coffin shut on the concept of freedom over there.
To name but a few bones to pick with the latest Decider.
I keep hearing daft contrasts from some when they look to America’s shining beacon of democracy, which sadly just doesn’t exist; not when you can be made a felon for refusing a mandatory vaccination of an untested product.
One Big Ass Mistake America
Honest people can no longer get elected.
No really it is not the money.
It is the 60% of the fucking electorate who cant be arsed to vote, getting the politicians they deserve.
Who would be put up even if everybody voted. The whole system is corrupt.
Come the revolution comrades when the postal vote rules the election will become obsolete, no longer will we bound by the intricacies of multiparty politics and we can get on with the business of formulating our glorious five year plan.
No; the ones who fail to vote are irrelevant. It is the ones who do vote who are the problem. The ones who are prepared to believe that someone else is always paying for whatever politicians promise them, and suck up all the sentimental populism that justifies a police-state.
It is that envious conformist mob that focus-group politics feeds on.
Easy make the vote compulsory and abolish postal voting….
The problem with this country’s electoral system is that it is the marginal constituencies which commands who rules the UK and the islands of one party state constituencies where the majorities are so large so opposition candidates stand a chance and electors think it is waste of time voting. I do think this will be altered in the near future as it suits both major parties
Absolutely spot on, Callaghan was a decent old chap, like Benn and Healey and many of those old socialists before Foot and the militant tendency et al stuck their fuck ugly noses in.
Ben was, is and ever will be, a clown and an uber socialist. Healey had great intellect as did Callaghan, and many other great labour figures of the past who deserved and got respect from their opponents because they had integrity and courage. And remember these were the days of the apprentice; you had to serve your time and prove your worth, not ponce about at uni, followed by political research, selection and the trough.
Many of them started their political lives as communists and are unfairly criticised for it; the fact that workers controlled and shared the wealth of the state was an deserved and wonderful achievement to be admired and emulated, especially in a world of unremitting grimness for the working classes. Of course the dream turned to a nightmare under Stalin; Healey realised this but I’m not so sure about Wedgie, the prototype Champagne Socialist.
Of course the dream turned to a nightmare under Stalin; Healey realised this
When ?
He gave a speech in the late 40s applauding the spread of socialism as one eastern european country after another suffered coups and then the Soviet embrace.
“I’m not so sure about Wedgie, the prototype Champagne Socialist.”
…and a teetotal Champagne Socialist at that!
George; Healey joined the Labour party during the war;I’m not suggesting he wasn’t a socialist.
Titbrain
I am anti socialist but anyone can see that Benn was one of the few persons of personal integrity and dignity in recent UK politics.
Why the rose-tinted spectacles? Callaghan and Healey were every bit as incompetent as Broon, back in the 70s, and bankrupted the country then. We had 90% tax, 33% inflation, we weren’t allowed to take money out of the country, the £ was devalued, and huge numbers of people lost their jobs and their homes. I’d fairly recently ‘gone freelance’ in publishing, and that Labour Govt (for which I’d voted) ruined me for years – there was just no work any more. Healey was a truly appalling Chancellor; we were resuced only by the IMF.
You had to be there to realise how horrific the strikes were, pre-Thatcher. I went to volunteer at my local hospital, as so many staff were on strike inc nurses – some ‘friends’ never spoke to me again, The streets were full of mountains of rubbish – and rats. We’d had the regular blackouts of the 3-day weeks – no electricty, working in the office by candle-light, weekly shared baths.
Since then Callaghan’s daughter ‘Baroness’ Margaret Jay (an arrogant supercilious bitch who oozed her way up to power on a sense of hereditary entitlement) has destroyed and commercialised the House of Lords. Look at the result of her ‘modernisation’: the H of Ls is now full of party political placemen, it’s whipped, has no mind heart or soul, and exists to claim its newly-awarded ‘expenses’. Formerly a glory of our democracy, filled with real people who had lived real lives outside politics, and forcing as it did our hot-headed and ignorant MPs to think twice, it’s now just a geriatric version of the Commons – a reward for failed politicians.
‘Sunny Jim’s’ daughter’s Wikipedia entry is informative on exactly the kind of Leftie hypocrisy and graft which was as common then in Labour circles as it is now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Jay,_Baroness_Jay_of_Paddington
I was old enough, and I DO remember it all. It was hell and I have never voted Labour again.
If you’d been old enough to remember it Guido, you would have gone for the jugular then, as now
claps
In the 1970’s Labour showed that they could destroy an economy with high taxes, high interest rates, high inflation, high public sector spending (waste), and the unions pulling the strings of the party.
The difference we have today is that “New” Labour have shown that they can also ruin an economy with the fiddled 300 year record low interest rates, fiddled low inflation figures, fiddled public sector spending (what is the REAL cost of the PFI scams?), and a combined 300 year high government borrowing, and the unions still pull New Labour’s strings.
The differences is that there are no differences. No matter what brand Labour like to put on the party, they are and always will be economy wreckers. That has never changed since the party was thought up.
I agree that Baroness Jay is a supercilious unpleasant woman who treats everyone who disagrees with her with undisguised contempt. The House of Lords, which she helped to ruin, is now beneath contempt, as is the Commons, with the noble lords pulling out as much of our taxpayers’ cash as they possibly can. Baroness Uddin is a prime example. Look her up and see the lies she told about where she lives. Another Blair babe, Another dishonest woman.
Before we get all misty eyed, I for one (unlike many “experts” now pontificating) lived through that period and remember it well. There is no question that if those blokes had continued the the UK would now be part of Russia. However, it has to be acknowledged that Healey was the only chancellor or any stripe EVER (repeat EVER) to reduce public expenditure in real terms. Mind you the IMF had his testicles in a vice. I thank the day Mrs T saved the country. But for how long I’m not sure. If immigration cant be stopped/reversed, and Dave wont get us out of the EU then its all over.
BBC reporting on how many/types of people that have been excluded by ‘immigration’ officials.
Neo Nazis and right wing extremists.
Why no communist exclusions?
BBC – ‘Left wing good, right wing bad’ – Orwell was obviously mistaken using ‘legs’ in this case!
Anon,
Whilst I do not remember the industrial strife of the Seventies (I was only 6 when Thatcher was elected) I DID want change after the 1997 election as I felt the Conservatives lacked a ‘human face’ with so many of the reforms they made.
Now I am older and wiser I have some sympathy with the Conservative standpoint. Not only am I disgusted with the wasted opportunities of the past twelve years in Westminster/Whitehall, I have also lived ‘oop North’ for much of this time. I have seen how a Labour-dominated council works (full of Common Purpose placemen screwing local people) and how the local MP, with a massive majority, takes those who employ him for granted. These are just some of the many reasons I am so against ZaNuLabour, having now lived through one of their governments. I have had my rose-coloured specs removed. I can now see why Labour upset so many people in the Seventies.
But I have reservations about the Conservatives. As somebody from the lower end of the social scale I do not remember Thatcher fondly. I am not saying that much of what she did was not necessary but it is a pity she failed to give her type of Capitalism a more human face.
But she was right regarding Europe and this is why she was removed. Unless CallMeDave and his crew make a promise for a referendum for EU withdrawal then I don’t think I will be voting for them. You are also right re: immigration. Unless it is brought under control then the game really is up.
It seems to me now, more than ever, they are all part of the same gang.
I lived through the Wilson Administrations and the Callaghan one and if you think that Callaghan,Healey and Benn were any different to the present lot then I am afraid you’ve fallen for the left re-writing history.The Wilson and Callaghan Years had some of the most dishonest slippery and downright mendacious politicians that you’re ever likely to find in British political history.
Unless you were living then it is impossible to comprehend how Labour fucked the country up in those years and the way the unions held the country to ransom with wild-cat strikes being called almost daily over minor arguments.Have you ever stopped to think why Britai’s manufacturing base declined or why British owned Car Makers went to the wall.Don’t believe the left’s claptrap – “blame everything on Thatcher” -the seeds were sown in the Wilson and Callaghan Years – with soaring inflation,balance of payments crisis after crisis,devaluation,soaring inflation and unemployment with outdated industry over-manned and uncompetitive riddled with the “closed shop” and restrictive practices” and the UK regarded as the “siack man of Europe”. Thatcher was the necessary medicine and people on the left didn’t like it although they were to blame for the situation in the first place
That is the real picture not the rosy one painted by those who write the history books of a “golden age” of Labour
Couldn’t have put it better myself. That was certainly my memory of the “Golden Age” of Wilson/Callaghan. The only difference between Wilson and Nixon was the latter got caught!!
Well said anony60mous, the Wilson years were beset by incompetance and slease. Robert Maxwell in cabinet, Sir Anthony Wedgewood Benn (millionare) and the ‘white hot technical revolution’ giving us wholesale nationalisation and tower blocks. Sir Joseph Kagan and knighthoods. Lady Marcia Faulkender and slag heaps. MI5 suspicions of comunist spies including Harold himself! The sudden resignation. There were some decent people in govt (George Brown honourable drunkard and Dennis Healey Anzio beachmaster) but it all ended the way of all Labour administrations in a sea of debt and fiscal imprudence.
How good to see someone telling it like it was, Excellent!
Ivor, not Sir Anthony Wedgwood Benn but Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate. That is until he realised that being a viscount might not carry with it too much cred. for a socialist and he morphed into the commoner, ‘Tony’.
I have to agree.
I believe Peter Cook summed up popular opinion at the time; referring to Callaghan as “that oily heap of shit” on one of the “Derek and Clive” albums.
But you have to agree!
Women’s panties were prettier under Callaghan/Wilson/Heath etc, than today with this wretched thong nonsense.
absolutely right on, I left the UK and like a pratt came back
Well I don’t think it’s really much help saying X politician is more “honourable” than Y. The key thing in a democracy is that they are all elected by us and can be removed by us.
Was Major fundamentally more decent than Blair? I don’t think so. Major told a lot of lies about the EU, conducted an affair with Edwina Currie and did the dirty on Thatcher.
Callaghan spiked the Labour government’s In Place of Strife legislation which really anticipated the Thatcher anti-strike legislation.
Callaghan bottled calling an election and presided over the winter of discontent.
He certainly acted the part of a decent PM. But I am not sure he convinced that amounts to the same thing as being a decent PM.
Any PM has to be practised in the arts of deceit and presentation.
“”Callaghan bottled calling an election and presided over the winter of discontent. “”
Why does that sound familiar ??????
Bob Maris,
Bit disingenuous to say that Major did the dirty on Thatcher – that would actually have been Michael Heseltine and Geoffrey Howe. Major didn’t even enter the leadership contest until after Thatcher had dropped out, and backed by Maggie herself as a suitable successor.
Callaghan, Thatcher and Major were shafted by their own people. No wonder the one eyed snot eater has gone mental.
considering Major was a secret shagger he must of lived in fear of being found out , thus he was very honest in not condemning the shaggers in his government would you have exposed him Guido?……of course you would
He should be made to pay back some of the fee he received for his autobiography. If I fork out my hard earned for a man’s storey of his life I expect it to contain details of the end game.
Is “end game” some new euphamism I am not familiar with Sir Reginald ?
As I for one am not entirely sure I could stomach the more intimate details of an “end game” involving the rather “specialised” charms of Edwina Currie.
Though I’m reliably informed that a considerable sum of “Expenses” might have been disposed of in such pursuits among the more adventurous Members of Parliament.
Sir Bufton: Shouldn’t that be “a not inconsiderable sum of “Expenses”?
“”Major was a secret shagger”"
Did that not leave him open to blackmail – and make him a security risk?
Same of Jacquis expenses…..and these other MPs whose expenses will reveal bed hopping antics….
They wouldn’t pass a security vetting for £120k a year Security Services jobs – how can they be MPs
Our current politicos are not at risk from blackmail.
They don’t care what they do, they don’t care who knows, and they don’t resign when exposed. How can such shameless immoral people be blackmailed when they are just as likely to see exposure as good publicity?
Joh is correct, the present mob are shameless! – inc about financial graft
But I do think we ought to take a leaf out of the French book, and stop beign so damn prurient about who shags whom. It’s nobody else’s business. Some affairs can keep a sagging marriage going, It’s all about being discreet, considerate, and not making unreasonable demands. We need to be more grown-up about such things
People live much longer than they did in the past, and marriage isn’t made for 30 ++ year stretches. It’s esp difficult for politicians – of either sex – who
A] see little of their families or B] have partners uninterested in politics.
Two different parties. One was the Labour Party which purported to stand for the British Working Class, the other is New Liars, a bunch of international socialist control freaks who don’t give a fuck about anyone except themselves and think themselves above the law.
Good point but you forgot to mention the new con spivs.
He didn,t forget,he was talking about the Labour Party.
There is only one party in England the “UK Big Business offshore tax- haven and banking party”
Labour and the Tories are no different.
They’re not really socialist though. Would a socialist party sell off the Post Office for instance? There are a lot of lefties and socialists out there who feel completely ripped off by the Labour party. Labour have no real aim or goal other than more money and power for themselves at the expense of everyone else. They’re a little like George Bush in that way – the lefties in the US would trash him as ‘far right’ etc. He never really wsa though, just a thieving criminal like Brown. We haven’t had a left or right party for years now. Just an authoritarian (bordering on totalitarian) group of thuggish crooks, thieves and liers.
“Just an authoritarian (bordering on totalitarian) group of thuggish crooks, thieves and liers.”
Yep and this becomes a police matter (oh sorry forgot they got bought by the ruling mafia too.)
You are unaware of the EU connection to the part-privatisation of the Post Office because you rely on the BBC for information.
Exactly – the EU is responsible for a good many of the things which infuriate us inc the rubbish disposal problem (and general waste disposal inc white goods etc, the PO sell-off and a good many other ‘anti-monopoly’ nonsenses, with dreadful consequences – the Fishery Policy being the worst of course with its wholesale waste of OUR foodstocks, and banrupting of OUR fishermen
Only Chris Booker in the Sunday Telegraph properly reports all this stuff. It’s worth finding all his columns online and reading back through them. Your eyes will be opened!
I have heard Norman Tebbit speak about his life in parliament and he said that Jim Callaghan was a decent man who offered him support as he was starting out in Westminster.
I wrote to Lord Callaghan shortly before he died asking for an autograph to be auctioned for charity and he sent me a very nice signed print of a portrait he had sat for. If all politicians were like him, Guido would be out of a job!
Maybe not out of a job but a bit shite. That’s a nice memory of him. I watched the 1979 thing yesterday and he did come over as a dude who respected the democratic process – his concession speech was gracious, pragmatic and honest. How on earth could he have predicted the next 30 years? Poor bugger – it’s probably best that he pegged it before now – watching whatever the hell his party has morphed into would make him puke.
Politicians of the old school I’m afraid, you know – people who have gone into politics after doing something else and thus finding out about the world. Now we have perpetual students playing student games.
I couldnt agree more. That is one of the problems with today’s politicians, they really have no idea of the real world outside of parliament. Whether they were ‘researchers’ or ‘lobbyists’ or whatever
Exactly – could not have put it better myself.Some of the old style politicos were venal, but they had at least been out in the real world and met real people doing proper jobs. They knew how the world worked, and they understood that to thrive, the country has to generate income: it can’t just depend on us all paying each other to service each other.
The wealth to pay for all that ’servicing’ has to come from the manufacture and sale of goods, not just the provision of ’services’ – goods comprising anything you can create// harvest and then sell, inc foodstuffs, minerals etc. True profit only comes from creating one thing from another – or from nothing – and taking a profit after costs. ‘Services’ are merely the icing: an optional extra, which feeds off the ‘manufacture’ of goods.
Thatcher understood that; but she sadly inherited an economy where manufacturing had become grossly uneconomic in almost every sphere due to Union power, and other aspects were being undermined due to EU influence (eg fisheries, agriculture, and similar industries over which the Govt no longer had/has control of policy).
We were ripe for foreign takeovers, and still are: what chance a country with no power over its own sources of food or power? (leaving aside its own immigration policies)
The current economic system whereby a whole army of ‘workers’ is employed to take our money off us, in various cvompicated ways, and then give some of it back to us (or to other people, many of whom are foreigners and have contributed nothing to the common good) was always a recipe for disaster. It just doesn’t add up
Decency and competency are both subjective. Although a b*ggered economy in record debt and lying, greedy associates disrespectful of people who have really served this country and of those who generate productive input to the economy may lead the man on the Clapham omnibus to draw certain conclusions.
Whatever people might have thought of Callaghan and his policies (rubbish), history does show him to be a decent man. Anyone who has read Tom Bower’s bio of Brown already knows, long ago, he would end up a pile of manure on UK Politics and a joke.
We joke about ZaNuLieBore but in Zimbabwe, however valueless the practice, they do go through the motions of voting for their president.
We with the mother of parliaments have a right mother of a democracy when we the electorate can’t elect our Prime Minister.
Going through the motions of voting in Zimbabwe is a meaningless charade.
Going through the motions of voting in this country is a meaningless charade. It only changes the pigs. We need to change the trough too!
Did anyone actually vote for the jock twat to run the country? I don’t remember the election for a new prime minister, but I can’t imagine anyone being that un democratic as to just install their replacement without an election; that would be just like those rubbish communist states that never have elections.
My father used to call Callaghan “a canny man” and he was a good judge of character. I can’t speak for the man’s policies as I’d no interest in politics in those days, I was too busy empowering flowers :)
I was busy deflowering. Much more fun!
Surely you’re not that Archie from under the railway bridge in Dundee back in 1962 I think it was ? Oh I’m blushing from the soles of my feet :)
Well, denverthen was only 8 years old then – and recently returned from the US after four years of being a Yank. So UK politics were not even on his radar.
Oh shit. I’m doing that Guido megalomania thing and talking about myself in the third person.
Anyway, I’m not so sure about Jim Callaghan because my first memory of hearing his name was round at my (fairly eccentric) grandmother’s on holiday in Wales. I remember that very well. He appeared on the telly and suddenly all I heard was a loud crash as a (full) cup of tea smashed into the screen, accompanied by the loud cry of ‘Bastard!’.
It damaged my fragile little mind – and left me with the impression that Jim Callaghan had somehow wronged my Gran (in some personal, possibly intimate way) and was therefore evil.
Watching the election thing today, though, I agree with Guido: he was actually a pretty decent bloke.
He just shouldn’t have messed with my granny.
The Welsh our still the same about Callaghan, its a welsh national thing.
Hah, nice story. Maybe one of your parents is Jim’s lovechild?
*speechless*
Callaghan had nothing on John Major.
Callaghan was weak, his party were in thrall to the unions, and the result was the Winter of Discontent that resulted in the Thatcher era.
Major was a decent man who spoke from the heart and went to the streets to talk directly to the people. His problem was that the tories were divided by Europe, a division which is dormant for the time being.
Can you imagine Brown, standing on a soap-box in the middle of Luton, talking directly to the people? Brown finds it difficult talking to the BBC, let alone the real people of England.
p.s.
I’m not a tory boy or a fan of Major, but I do admire any policitician who will stand up to the public in open debate on the streets.
Yes god could you imagine the one eyed snot eater doing that? Mixing with the unwashed public? I think not.
Ask the copper at the door when Obamha arrived.
Oswald Mosely did that!
Not a Labour supporter but I was hugely impressed by Bob Marshall-Andrews in the last campaign, actually standing on a box in Strood town centre happily debating with all-comers (and there are some thoroughly dodgy types there!)
Speaking of Bob Marshall-Andrews, he is one of the rebel MPs who voted with the LibDems on the Ghurka vote, and have found themselves on a ‘hit list’ of twenty names. The list has been presented by Grimer Wormtongue (Nick Brown) to Gordon Brown of MPs to be deselected from their constituencies, these also include, Diane Abbott, Kate Hoey, Glenda Jackson, John McDonnell, Paul Truswell and Mike Wood. An eighth, Marsha Singh abstained.
I will be voting for William Hague at the GE who is my MP, however if I were in the constituency of some of the above who are thoroughly decent people, my hand would be hovering as I make the ‘X’, but only for a moment.
weak is a little harsh. The rules of engagement were different then, once again as a result of the war. Consensus was seen as a desirable position to maintain and had been since 1945. Thatcher changed all that, some of it for the better, some very much for the worse.
When Major had had enough of the attacks upon him, he demanded his party ‘put up or shut up’
He risked being slung out {not a big risk but still 25-33% possible say} as his majority was pitiful.
Could anyone imagine the current PM, with his massive majority, inherited from a previous leader, ever risking such a stunt.
No, of course not.
The ‘Courage’ he talks of is all liquid.
Look at his standup
youtube dvd piece again. He’s so comical.
Only a yoghurt would have thought this was a good idea.
Just love this dance of BROWN
YouTube if you want, Gordon.
The LADY is not for gurning.
It’s easy to look at the past with rose-tinted glasses but yeah, I think Callaghan was a fundamentally decent man. I also have a great deal of respect for Denis Healey, who in spite of the recieved wisodm wasn’t actually that bad of a chancellor, having to deal with problems heaped upon him as a result of 1973. Andrew Marr’s history of Britain talks a fair bit about what went on and you do get the feeling that whoever was at the helm then would have faced much the same trouble.
Conversely, even though I sit left of centre I though Peter Carrington was too. Even Foot was a decent man, just not up to the job of leading the rubble left after 1979. And it showed.
Also, many people traduced Heath, but at least his views on Europe (though many disagree with them) were sincerely held as a result of real experience, not smply on cynical political expediency.
Perhpas it all comes down to people like Heath, Healey and Callaghan being part of a generation who faced war first hand, didn’t like what they saw and were determined to do something to make the country they returned to better.
We are now in the first political generations who have no real memories of those times, perhaps we shouldn’t be surpised by what we may see as a comparative lack of a higher moral purpose.
Is that the same Peter Carrington who let the Argies take the Falklands when he was Roreign Minister (at least he had the good grace to resign), and the same Peter Carrington who held the door open for Mugabe at Lancaster Gate and subsequently Zimbabwe?
Also the same Johnnie who brewed tea beside his tank while the Paras were being slaughtered in Arnhem
Yes, but at least he DID resign and admitted ful culpability. Can you imagine that happening now, with a politician of ANY complexion? No, the lanscape has changed, and not for the better I fear.
Heath was an insider trader and shafted the Commonwealth to get in the EC.
Let’s not forget that Healey was a card carrying member of the Communist Party before he ‘allegedly’ saw the light.
Yes, Callaghan had ‘colleagues,’ but Brown has only ‘accomplices.’
Actually Sunny Jim was a shit of the first order!
Perhaps this is from a Scottish viewpoint
As many on here may not realise Callaghan and the rest of the Labour government of the day, had gone out of there way to shaft Scotland, when Oil was discovered of the coast of Scotland in the seventies.The was something called the McCrone report, that advised that the Oil produced would make Scotland a wealthy place and would encourage Independence. Sunny Jim had it made Top secret and burried for the next thirty years. Then told Scots that there wasnt going to be much out of the North Sea, but London would control the revenues. Then he shafted Scotland on devolution, sinking it for twenty odd years
So you see, for those North of the Border, we dont see Sunny Jim through rose tinted specs
So by that viewpoint we may as well dump Scotland & Wales and save a few bob.
Cut the jocks off from the rest of us, why the fuck should we subsidise their universities, prescription charges etc etc etc.
I hope that when we get an English prime minister to replace the McBroon and Tony “I’m a Jock honestly I was born there” McFuckingBlair dynasty we’ll actually get the same treatment for all when it come to sharing out the tax money. I’m sick to fucking death of the jocks whinging about how bad it is not having their own government, well you’ve got your own corrupt bunch of self interested cnuts to squander the tax payers money now, let us cut you off so that they’re onlt squandering your money and not ours.
the whole Scotland thing was a mess. Basically, with a reduced majority Callaghan (in fact, at that point he was efectively leading a minority govt) had to keep the Libs on-side by dangling the promise of a devolution vote to keep them in the Lib-Lab Pact. It meant he had to tread very carefully with regards to Scotland all told.
Of course, the vote was held and didn’t go through. At that point the Libs got what they had wanted and bailed out of the pact, one of the factors that brought things to a head in the no conf vote in March 1979 when his ogvernment fell.
Didn’t the offshore boundary line “move” as well ?
Oil was discovered a decade earlier in the mid sixties. Production of oil started in the mid seventies.
The Shetlanders don’t consider themselves Scots and resent the jocks claiming their oil.
A lot of the oil, and a lot more of the gas, resides in “English” waters. If you extend the Scottish/English border which runs in a North-easterly diagonal direction into the North Sea (as any demarcation would have to be done) then you will see what I mean.
Utter bollocks Doc!
Amusing, but inacurate.
It was the Labour Government that moved the boundary into a ‘north east’ direction s in effect waters to the east of Fife are in England
As fo the Shetland story, this isa highy popular one amongst the unionist kabal, to try and divide Scotland up. Actually that was alos one of Sun Jim’s wheezes which was recently exposed
Wrong on both counts, Dr Mick. My late Aunt was a Shetlander and I asked her about your claim some years ago, as I have heard this repeated before, usually by some English muppet that knows nothing Scotland, or about the Independence movement. She said this was total rubbish, as is your claim about the border running in a North-Easterly direction. Why people still believe that utter shite is beyond me. Typical ‘pub lore’ comment.
Dear Dr. Mick, Shetlanders may THINK that they are not part of Scotland but they very much are and have been for 800 years which is longer than they belonged to Norway, they were a gift to the Scottish Crown. Callaghan was a prat, a typical labour politician who could not keep faith with the people who voted for him, just like Brown. I also lived through a good many politicians, and truth be told we have thge Thatcher government to thank for todays ills, after all the Nu Labour rubbish have just continued the policies.
Thank God for the SNP.
I also watched the BBC Parliament coverage of the 1979 election. What struck me was how civilised everyone was towards their opponents. One cannot imagine Callaghan employing a McBride creature in Number 10. Nor would The Lady have approved such an approach. I did notice that the one exception to this was Roy Hattersley, who was evidently still as bitter as he is now, and had the same fragile ego.
Really? What did Bernard Ingham do then? ;D
Classic.
Point taken. But I think Bernard was fairly restrained compared to the current assorted scum in Downing Street.
I was watching the end of the coverage too, and was struck by the all-round civility, (especially with Shirley William’s defeat. What a contrast with people like McShane and Mc Bride).
Civil aside from bloody Hattersley who said the brits voted for the Conservatives ‘in spite of Mrs Thatcher not because of..’
V interesting to see Callaghan’s resignation speech at Transport House. He said North Sea oil revenue was about to come on stream and the government would benefit for ‘10-15 years, though I hope they don’t stay in that long…’ Little did he know.
He also thought that the result was because of ‘memories of last winter rather than for the Conservatives’ though he was pretty magnanimous. Interesting to see the ‘business as usual’ vibe, despite the huge disruption of the 1970s. Interesting also to see the ‘business as usual vibe’ of the time. The boss of GKN pleaded for a gentle approach to the unions.
One commentator warned Mrs T would learn the limitations of government. I think Mrs T’s whirlwind must have been a massive shock to the ‘in place of strife’ merchants of the time.
What a massive, shocking even, contrast between the manner of Callaghan’s manner of defeat and the way Brown behaves.
AJ – bizarre. Such a similar train of thought…
Agreed, JHH, it brings the country together. I wonder how the youth of today regard Thatcher, after that documentary.
My sons are still idealistic (24 and 28) but I believe they’ve been awakened to the sheer venality and mendacity of McMental & Cons, in comparison to government in the more genteel era of two generations back.
It shows how positive a sway the BBC can have on society, if it gets its priorities right.
Robin Day went for it, especially when he interviewed John Knot during the Falklands war.
1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act ‘decent’? From Sunny Jim’s time at the Home Office? COME ON, Guido, it’s one of the most xenophobic pieces of legislation out there!
Typical, shameless Labour pandering to white working class manual labourers afraid of competition for their jobs.
I was right you know, even tho’ I was only talking about 50,000 of them.
Yes you was.
I wonder what Guido would have written about Callaghan if blogs, the internet, etc., existed then?
Perhaps you’d have suggested he was mentally ill?
Or gay?
Or maybe a communist?
The Fawkes of the 1970s would have concentrated on the corruption of the Unions and their very close ties with the USSR.
Just wait until we get Sir Michael Edwarde’s memiors – if they get past the security services, of course…. I once interviewed him and was left with the impression he had a burning story he wanted to tell.
Some things never change…
Grow up you can’t blame Ghido for most of the withering on here; the politicians get what they deserve.
I think Callaghan was shaften by the unions. After beer and sandwiches at No. 10 they turned on him in the winter of discontent, unwilling to accept the economic reality of the time or the consequences of their actions. It was indeed time for a change though, with Keynsian approaches to the economy replaced with a well-needed more monitorist approach. How things have changed. Or have they?
Not exactly. It has become ever more difficult (in general) for honest people to be elected to office, though not in all constituencies and not by default in all parties. It is much more complex than that.
It also seems a bit easier for honest types to be elected at local level, harder at parliamentary (MP) level, and probably at least as tough at EU level. At least, that has been my appraisal from watching and participating in various elections.
any MP’s replied to UN Electoral Oversight info request?
I think you will find it will be about red robbo and the management; the hand and glove went out of control.
Great minds….and all that………
It was good to see Robin Day in his prime, and also a rather young-looking John Cole laying into Garret Fitzgerald…..
The BBC should put this sort of stuff on more often…………sometimes the stuff on the Parliament channel is such a drag………
Also Ingham was working against some very ideologically hostile press, Campbell and co were behaving far worse when virtually everybody was on their side…
I think you are pushing the actuality :)
I think you mean ‘economical with the actualite’, in those fine words of Alan Clark, whom I greatly miss – we need more characters like him in politics and less complete bores. And that applies to Tories, labour, etc….
Yep, Sorry :)
Yes, A. J. – Clarke was at least well insulated from the squalid temptations and disgusting avarice currently demonstrated by so many MPs. He is/was the classic example of a man who afford to be unpopular with both sides of the House, with enormous breadth of vision. I didn’t agree with everything he said and felt, but I certainly admired his ability to express himself clearly and cogently. His historical research was meticulous, too. Frankly he was the prime example of exactly why all MPs should have external interests and sources of income. Who really believes that ‘professional MPs’ would be any better? What guarantees are there as to their likely probity and ‘professional’ ability? For that matter, how and by whom are they to be selected?
Judging from most of the comment here I must be one of the oldest (if not the oldest) contributors here. I’d observe that since the Second World War the notions of honesty, dignity and personal integrity have been virtually destroyed.
Let’s be clear. Were it not for Guido and some others – Iain Dale, for example – none of this constant and overwhelming sea of mendacity, greed, duplicity and sheer incompetence would have been exposed to such a wide audience. We can now see the political ’system’ for what it is – with at its zenith the Parliamentary Augean Stables, cascading its ordure down through the whole of public life. Although I may sometimes disagree with their views, and maybe sometimes they get it wrong, they have done us all a very great service. Just imagine the situation, had they not existed.
At the risk of sounding a complete fogey I’d note that our standards of behaviour, personal and public, have collapsed. It’s actually really heartening to see that many here take the same view and are so outraged. Politics and political life seem to have become entirely divorced from everything that ordinary, decent, honourable individuals hold dear. We should all seriously consider whether those who are standing in the coming elections – of all sorts – really represent our views. Many do not. It may be argued that a Conservative Government would be no better. Well that remains to be seen, but of itself that is no reason for retention of the current ghastly regime.
I shall never vote for a Labour Government, and I speak as one whose forebears served with considerable honour and distinction under the Atlee administration and as Labour peers. The Socialist argument and Socialist principles have been corrupted beyond all recognition. The concept of service to one’s country and to its people has been destroyed, to be replaced by shallow mediocrity and self-interest. The current Labour Party is no more than a political machine driven by those who are unprincipled, amoral, and merely besotted with power and wealth. It has nothing at all to do with the betterment of man and his lot.
Hostile? The Guardian, Mirror and Indie perhaps. I’d hardly call the Murdoch press, athe Telgraph, Mail, Express and even today at that point particularly hostile. I’d say that the press were rather more receptive to him than they were for the Major governemntm or Labour since around the turn of the decade (remember the savaging that Blair took for the fuel protests before September 11?)
The facts are simple: people always attempt to marhall slective data to support thier own theses. It’s a very human thing to do. Hence all those BBC boards where 50% claim the Beeb is a bastion of establishment values, while the other 50% seem to claim that they are trying to bring down society in an anarchistic fury. The real truth is neither, or possibly somewhere in between.
I stand by my basic points made earlier. Callaghan was a broadly decent man, who had to do some rather unpleasant things. Wilson had the same problem with Northern Ireland. Politicians have to do rthat, it’s part of the job. Then, when they do, people complain about it. Much of the more valid complaining now centres around how much of politcians’ behaviour is about the national interest or self-interest.
Newspapaers want a story. They want easily resolvable narrative. They want conflicy. The real world is unfortunately more complex than that now, so the media struggle to make sense of it all. As a result they have helped to turn politics into a playground-level name-calling child’s game. And the political system has gone along with it. PMQ’s and most high-profile parliamentary debates are about scoring points for TV soundbites and not about real ideas any more. Even the Lords is being dliuted; where once the quality of debate actually meant that legislatinowould be properly scrutinsed by those with real knowledge and experience, reofrms have evne botched this. Strange when one considers that, during the 80’s, the Lords were the only opposition the Thatcher governments really encountered.
And of course, some of us are culpable too. Look at this blog. Lots of comments are measured, funny, insightful and fair. PLenty aren’t though. Just look and laugh at the BBC’s Have Your Say section and wonder how many of these the teacher would have let use scissors. We may blame hacks for many things but we are part of the problem: in the end, we get the politicans we deserve. Sad, but ultimately true.
Sorry for the typos. I appear to have lost the ability to type properly.
I had a very similar reaction to Guido having watch today’s re-run of something that happened when I was 10 years old re. Callaghan. He showed a certain grace that is beyond our current PM’s understanding and towered over the whining scum that surrounded him.
The lesson I took though was from watching the union leaders of that era who cropped up on the show, who were being asked, fundamentally; ‘will you allow the democratically elected government to govern’ and their answers of ‘maybe, if you are nice to us’ being an acceptable answer at the time.
Anybody who thinks that Thatcher achieved nothing in her time, even if you have no rose-tinted spectacles, is completely certifiable.
I am a child of the Thatcher era and for all its faults, and for all the inadequacies of those who have come after, our current clown included, I live in a better country because of her and I’m grateful for it.
Spot on.
You must have been around the sheep to long at your granny’s
Grow-up (again).
No :)
Fair enough. I’ll just have to play with my sheep like all good Welsh(ish) boys apparently do, then (now that granny’s dead) :-o
You don’t know what you’re missing, boyo.
I’m glad you were so lucky.
Grow-up.
Me too. From the bottom of the respectable working class ladder to an interesting job and transformed lifestyle. I even once met Fawkes.
I’m afraid the established, liberal middle classes just don’t understand the way things were transformed for us under Maggie.
I think Geoffrey Howe put it very well: The Lady’s achievment was not to have transformed her own party, but also the Labour Party…..
Unfortunately, Call-me-Dave and his “heir to Blair” nonsense means that the Labour party have now done the same to the Tories
I am very grateful too – Mrs T allowed my mum and dad to buy their council house – my mum’s dream of owning her own house became a reality. I and my brother benefited greatly from this when they both sadly passed away. Mrs T transformed this country – and I will be forever thankful. I know there will be all the socialists on here who point out all the things in their minds she altered for the worse but on balance Mrs T left this country in a better state than she found it. And no-one will shake my belief that she was the best post war prime minister. I just wish we had another one like her waiting to take over from the present shower – I fear Cameron is more Heath than Thatcher.
I bet you were grateful for your giveaway council house. My parents lived in an area surrounded by them, a terrace, whilst all the semis with larger gardens, overlooking parks etc were given away at a pittance to the occupants who had lived in them half as long as mine had, and were still paying their mortgage when the first of these knockdown properties were naturally being sold off for a handsome profit.
“I bet you were grateful for your giveaway council house. My parents lived in an area surrounded by them, a terrace, whilst all the semis with larger gardens, overlooking parks etc were given away at a pittance to the occupants who had lived in them half as long as mine had, and were still paying their mortgage when the first of these knockdown properties were naturally being sold off for a handsome profit.”
Hear hear, I’m still paying my mortgage while all the workshy scum who inherited their council houses have now sold them off at great profit and have kids at university (ie Tech College without the learning). And still they dont work but with their inherited wealth laugh at those of us who struggled for 25 years to pay for our houses.
Oh yeah, and I’m now retired but still paying and Gordo never did pay my £60 Christmas bonus that was going to kickstart the economy.
My mum and dad worked all their lives – apart for fighting for thisd country in WW2 – both had low paid jobs but believed in eductaion. I was fortunate to pass the 11+ and go to a grammar school, was the first in my family to go to university and get a degree, then spent 31 years as a police officer – fighting the pickets in the steel strike and miners strike, suffering the Hillsborough disaster and being hospitalised four times whilst on duty. I earned £28/week when a joined the police in 1975 – Mrs T doubled our pay on 3 May 1979.
My parents were neither workshy nor feckless – they had been council tenants for 30 years paying rent – they had bought their house many times over. Not all people from council estates are losers – your stereo type is wrong.
Surely Guido was actually 409 years old at the time Thatcher came to power? ;)
The series “Yes Minister” highlighted the transition of power from unelected senior civil servants to a Prime Minister who decided her own way. In the end it was Maggie’s downfall but it shook the government from complacency about the “right thing to do” and getting in touch with what they were elected to do.
Guido. Have you taken careful note of the Harpie’s denials.
She will not seek the leadership, she does not want the leadership, she will not under any circumstances be Prime minister or leader of the Labour Party.
I should cut a few of those quotes out of the papers. They are bound to come in handy over the next 18 months. Nothing like a good LIAR LIAR LIAR post to open the new year.
Not quite, she qualified it with a reference to “under gordongob” on her radio 4 outing.
hateperson scoring again.
the count of the petition is
49983
Funny, a few minutes later it’s dropped back down to 49,924!
Weird mind you nothing would surprise me on this
Latest now showing is
49992
50,009 :-D
Thatcher? “There’s no such thing as society”.
In context as valid now as then
“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand”I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or”I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and[fo 1] there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation and it is, I think, one of the tragedies in which many of the benefits we give, which were meant to reassure people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help, that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were unfortunate—” It is all right. We joined together and we have these insurance schemes to look after it” . That was the objective, but somehow there are some people who have been manipulating the system and so some of those help and benefits that were meant to say to people:”All right, if you cannot get a job, you shall have a basic standard of living!” but when people come and say:”But what is the point of working? I can get as much on the dole!” You say:”Look” It is not from the dole. It is your neighbour who is supplying it and if you can earn your own living then really you have a duty to do it and you will feel very much better!”
This is what she actually said:-
I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand”I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or”I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.
It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation…
Margaret Thatcher, 31 Oct 1987.
One of the foundations of left wing anti-Thatcher rhetoric kicked away.
If only socialists would use the Thatcher quote correctly, they would see that individuals are the architect of their own downfall. Quoting someone accurately is in the same vein as truth telling, not going to happen. No change there then.
Politicians complain they are not trusted by the public but do not want to find out why, or more importantly do anything to makes themselves more credible.
> life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations
This is SPOT on! Labours benefit culture and promotion of spiralling debt has created the vile “something for nothing” entitlement culture (it’s my Riiiiights). The UKs problems are nothing to do with wealth, it’s the wealth without work, i.e. the fake wealth from benefits or debt that were both encouraged by Labour and killed morality in this country.
All the post-war Prime Ministers until Brown understood that they were in office by virtue of the electorate and maintained a degree of humility as a result. Even at her most bunkered period, in her final year or so, Mrs Thatcher knew she had to deal with real people’s questions in language they could understand.
It is unrealistic to think anyone can get the top job without a degree of ruthlessness in dealing with opponents, particularly opponents within their own party. That does not make them unsavoury individuals, it is merely one of the many qualities they have to show in order to be electable as the leader of their party.
The difference between Brown and all his recent predecessors is not that he was anointed by his party rather than elected (that was the norm until the 1970s), nor that he does not have a personal general election mandate as Prime Minister (Eden, Home, Callaghan and Major were in the same position when they took office), it is that he overtly and expressly governs for the government not for the people. The closest he has come to engaging in public debate with the little people is his recent YouTube fiasco which debased him yet further and brought his office into disrepute.
It could never be said of Callaghan that he ever ignored the need to try to persuade the people or that he governed for himself and his party rather than doing what he felt was best for the country within the political practicalities of his wafer-thin majority. Wilson and Blair showed every sign of wanting power for the sake of power, but still they knew they had to address their arguments directly to us little people and they did so very effectively. Major’s soap-box was a stroke of pure genius, made all the more so by Kinnock’s international grandstanding and the suicidal Sheffield rally.
Brown simply doesn’t do ordinary people. It would be some consolation if I were able to say that he wants to but can’t, but I don’t believe that is the case. He doesn’t do ordinary people because he doesn’t think ordinary people matter. To him the State machine matters first and the party machine is necessary to furnish him with power to operate the State machine. Yet he operates it first and foremost to prolong his time in power rather than to confer any benefit on the little people.
It is unthinkable that Callaghan would have contemplated for one second acting as Brown does. It is equally unthinkable that Brown’s removal at the next election (if not before) will be met by a humble concession of power and a cheery “thanks for the memories”. He is a weak and shallow man who claims to have moral compass but certainly has no moral fibre.
Is reaction to the copper when Obamha visited says it all; he is socially retarded.
No need for the “socially” bit.
“Mrs Thatcher knew she had to deal with real people’s questions ”
IIRC the only real person she ever took a question from was Diana Gould.
She never did it again.
Yeah, Jimmy. Right on.
Twat.
I enjoyed that; but I suppose the survivors of the Belgranno didn’t see the funny side.
Well, neither did the survivors of the Coventry, the Sheffield, the Antelope, the Atlantic Conveyor and so on and so on…
You do more violence to a determined enemy than they do you and you win. That’s war.
At least Thatcher got that even if the left never have – and never will. And she would never ever have allowed Iraq even to happen, whatever the pressure from the monkey.
That’s the difference.
If you read any personal accounts of Thatcher – there were several in the Telegraph on Sunday which are online – it’s precisely her empathy with and kindness to the ‘little people’ – esp those who worked for her – which come across very strongly. She certainly did listen to ordinary people.
All those who worked in Downing Street and Chequers wept when she left.
I understand no-one wept when Cherie left LOL – it seems the staff all loathed her
[allegedly!]
The Belgrano was a warship. It was sunk during a legal war. In war you destroy the stuff of the other side, otherwise it will destroy you.
No one could ever say that the Falklands war was illegal. No one could ever say that Margaret Thatcher was complicit in the torture of Argentinians.
Not quite the same with Blair, Hoon, Nrown, Milliband.
Thatcher never threw lazer printers at anyone.
Never mind that in those days lazer printers were bloody heavy and few people could afford them she would never have done such a thing. Nor would she have thrown a mobile phone either.
Never mind that in those days mobile phones………zzzz
She used to make sandwiches for people, tidied up after the boys (cabinet), talked to anyone and carried the mantle ‘gaffer’ with undoubted authority. Can you imagine snotgobbler getting off his arse and making brews for his colleagues? Just a simple cup of tea? No, me neither.
Can you imagine snotgobbler getting off his arse and making brews for his colleagues?
Surely, in Brown’s cabinet, this will be Harriet’s job?
Do you think that she’s gobbling the snotgobblers trouser snot?
Brown must surely be the worst PM we had ever had to put up with. Even the hopeless Edward Heath was better than him.
Education disaster coming to a school near you and very soon
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1177304/Primary-school-crisis-thousands-children-place-come-September.html
I don’t suppose there’s any link between this potential problem and Ed Arsehole spending too much time concentrating on the possibilities for him when McTwat finally implodes rather than actually doing the job he’s paid to do (and clearly has no interest in).
Nah… There’s no link there. Silly me.
Interesting article.
Quote.
There’s a particular problem in London. Up to 2,250 five-year-olds due to start in September are short of places. Their numbers are predicted to swell to 5,000 by next year and 18,300 by 2014.
At least 25 of the capital’s 33 boroughs say they have too many children. James Kempton, London Councils executive member for children, said: ‘Temporary classrooms and expanded classes are simply not good enough, but London’s boroughs are being forced into a position where these are our only option.’
In Surrey, where applications rose 10 per cent this year, 21 extra classrooms have been added. Birmingham, Bristol and other cities have also reported problems.
The Department of Children, Schools and Families, said: ‘There should be no unexpected demand for reception places because of a rise in birth rate – authorities have four years in which to provide the additional places.
Endquote.
In the last paragraph the Department spokesman is clearly criticising the Minister in saying that there should be no problem, we had four years warning.
I’m sure Nulab’s experience with the prisons will help them through this crisis, except rather than releasing the kids early, they will come up with some psychobabble theory that school shouldn’t start until they are older.
It’s Maggie’s fault, she stole their milk back in 197…..
I’m glad she stole the milk. I remember being force-fed this wretched warm disgusting yellow stinking gloop and was overjoyed when I was told that we wouldn’t be getting this horrible stuff anymore. This cheesey rancid muck used to make me feel sick most days, but teachers would stand over us until it was all downed.
You don’t need to tell me what the Gulag was like. I lived it. It was socialism in the 1970s.
(BTW, it’s strange, isn’t it, that private sector milk is cool, chilled, white, fresh, and refreshing. Funny that.)
I’m sure Jim was a nice man and all that, you can argue about his ability as PM….he did however appoint his daughter’s non diplomat husband to the highest diplomatic post, namely UK Ambassador to the US. Maggie Jay, sorry Baroness Jay, then made the UK a joke with her goings on.
nice people, especially those who are supposed to believe in air opportunities and equality for all don’t do that, in my opinion
Don’t be fooled Guido.
I’m a little older than you and I well remember Callaghan turning up in Eaton Square to visit his champagne socialist friend, the Peer, Harold Lever who lived in extraordinary splendour. Even a gold ingot on his Louis V1 writing desk. Great backgammon players apparantly.
Callaghan was a total shit, useless as a PM, and a total hypocrite like the vast majority of socialists.
He didn’t last long as you will see from the history books.
Camoron will be elected and prove to be another weak and disappointing PM. No policies, lack of direction and a group of intellectual lightweights on his front bench. Same as Callaghan.
Don’t put too much faith in Camoron. He isn’t the Tory saviour we all dream of. So sad. So very very sad.
To demonstrate my point, where has he been this weekend? Total silence from the Conservatives, not even a squeak about Uddin’s revolting behaviour.
How do you expect these hopeless people to lead this country out of our mess if they cannot even organise themselves to savage the BBC on a daily bias.
Camoron is frightened of the Playground bully (BBC) and is trying to appease them. We all know what happens when you play that game. The bully grows in strength. Callaghan took the same approach but with the Unions.
The similiarities between the Commie Callaghan and weakling Camoron are frightening.
Oh let me be wrong.
“Camoron is frightened of the Playground bully (BBC) and is trying to appease them.”
In his current position, what should he be doing about the BBC ?
I may be reading too much into it, but my impression is that the Conservatives are doing the right thing. If they go on the offensive too early, there is a danger they will peak too soon. Crying “foul” every time a Labour pig gets caught at the trough will being to sound overused, especially when you consider how many opportunities they have had, and will have, to do this.
No, much better to let the stories keep coming to the press, and allow people to draw their own conclusions. Who among us needs to be told what to think about blatant stealing from the public purse?
It will be the mark of the man if he scraps the telly tax and dismembers Auntie in his first few months in office.
If radical action is not taken on the taxation and spending front very soon we are well and truely fucked. I just hope Cameron has the balls.
Cameron should instruct one of his more intelluctually able front bench MP’s to be responsible for dealing with media lies. He should make it plain that unless the BBC get a grip, he will remove the licence fee and terminate their charter upon his election victory. Fair reporting or no reporting.
Not difficult is it?
Peak? The conservatives have had since 1997 to climax. No fear of that. We taxpayers have been funding them to oppose. What in God’s name have they opposed that truly affects the fundamental issues of this country whilst the socialists have taken us down the road to bankruptcy?
In truth all us Tories from whatever spectrum of the blue rainbow know in our hearts the current line up are hardly top drawer. Yes there are one or two strikers, but the majority are ineffective, lacking confidence, easily influenced, not terribly bright, have no real vision, are frightened of shadows and all sadly are all professional politicians.
We need them now to run our country NOW as there really is noone else.
If any of you Tories in Central Office are reading this, don’t dismiss my rant. Take it on board. I’m a Tory foot soldier delivering leaflets, hosting garden party events to raise money for the cause. This comment is very common among the supporters. Get a grip pleeeease.
If Cameron is an average or poor PM and Osbourne an average or poor Chancellor, I would settle for that, because this would be a massive improvement on what we have now.
Who is the Tory savior then?
Only Daniel Hannan looks up to the job, to me, but he’ll be crucified by the MSM if/when Cameroon fails, for daring to speak truth to power.
And then there’s the small matter of him not being an MP.
No doubt Cameroon also has standing orders to all Tory constituencies not to let Hannan stand as a candidate at the next election, to prevent this true heir of Thatcher coming to the fore.
I’ve just woken up at 2:50 a.m. and it’s not getting any better.
Have you lot lost your senses?
It was only 65 years earlier that British troops were one second shooting at one another and then a few seconds later having a Christmas game of footy in no mans land. This is just the way public school boys and girls communicate with each other. Or the budding Mrs Buckets of parliament believed at the time they were expected to behave to each other.
Having said that.
Being civil to even your worst enemy is the mark of a gentlemen, however the trick is to stab the other bastard in the back as soon as he stupidly turns it to you.
This of course is usually reserved for members of there own party, as most of the time it is their fellow ‘right dishonorables ‘ they have to compete with, for the first go up the greasy pole.
As the opposition parties MP’s clearly all love each other far more then they would ever dream of loving us, both in the metaphorical and literal sense. We get the sort of government we have now got. ( Which is not a properly made accountable one, to say the very least.)
Until an election comes round. At which time they have to start pretending they were not either lovers ‘best friends’, or ‘bum chums’ at uni’ twenty or less years ago, and start being marginally mean to each other for 3 whole weeks.
If someone with a different coloured tie kept voting me an above inflation pay increase every 12 months, I would be his best friend as well.
heruughuh!! Heruughuh!! DING DING DING DING
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx XX
x x x x x x x x x XX
x x x x x x x x x XX
xxxxx x x x x x x x x XX
x x x x x x x x x XX
x x x x x x x x x
xxxxx xxxxx & xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx XX
50,000
I am still waiting for this petition to go live.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to expedite the
enquiry into the full circumstances of the Iraq war. This
enquiry should cover ministerial conduct, the issues
surrounding the lead up to the start of the war, the
prosecution of that war and the consequences of that War. The
enquiry should be fully prepared to consider references to
whether the UK was complicit in War crimes, especially in light
of recent revelations by the Government of the United States of
America.
Any enquiry should cover
Issues surrounding Ministerial statements about Weapons of mass
destruction. The numbers of Iraqi citizens that died as a
result of the War. The effects on terrorism generated by the
Iraq War. The economic consequences for Iraq of the War and our
resulting liabilities. British complicity in torture. Whether
statements made to the House about our full involvement in Iraq
and our complicity in torture hold true. Whether Ministers
lied about torture to the Courts about their knowledge of
torture during the Binyam Mohamed case.
I was serving in Um Qasar when Blair came out for a much publicised visit. Once you got through the masses of pro-Nulabour tabloiders and spin doctors there was this haggard looking chap with that inane grin that so came to characterise the man. It was then I realised that he wasn’t actually in control of his faculties; infact if you looked behind him there was a monstrous grinning devil with her hand up his arse making his lips move. “Hi Tony” he said to me as he proffered a firmer than expected handshake. Later on that week some more human rights legislation was steam rollered through the house and the grinning devil grinned even more.
I can’t help wonder if it was “Hi Tony” or the grinning “Mrs Hi Tony” who ordered the war, they both seemed very cosy with the ultra rich oil folk of the U.S of A
And if you looked behind her, you might have seen a very quietly grinning devil, now back in power and with a seat in the Lords. Some intrepid reporter should delve back into Oxford days… She may have had something on him, to get her hand up that far. God I hate the lot of them.
Tantalisingly close to another milestone at 49,997…
950,000 to go!
If everyone who’s signed registers for another 19 e-mail addresses we could pretend the public gives a shit.
Jimmy, you really are the most obnoxious, boring oaf I’ve ever come across. Why don’t you just disappear if you don’t like it here?
Jimmy,
I think it’s a bit late in the day for your one liners to swing the vote. Nu Labour is going down.
o.k so forget the postal vote, lets do it by e-mail
But Cato, what’s not to like? This is the future of journalism. It said so in the Independent.
50007 now :-) #15 in the all time petitions list (not bad for 12 days’ work).
There’s one month from now until the elections, so if we carry on at the same rate there should be around 180,000 by then, all telling him to get the fuck out of Downing St. This would make it #6 on the all time list in only six weeks, so carry on telling everyone you know who hasn’t signed it yet and we might get there!
Yes but the petrol thingy got 1.8 million or something, so loads more work to done or is petrol more of an issue than a burnt scots porridger?
But the petrol thingy was there for about 18 months as I recall. I think the rate is about the same, which seems to be as many as the PM’s shitty website can handle when it gets busy. 50,000 in 12 days is 1,500,000 in 360 days if my maths is right…
Keep up the pressure, if this website got 300,000 visitors last month then only 16.7% of us have signed up so far….
Compare to http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/support-the-PM/ Broon McHoon has the grand total of 61 supporters at the moment, including (before the mods do another cull):
Richard Head
Gerry Mandering
John Doe
Jane Doe
Ivan R Donne
Barrack Obama
Fuj Packab Rrown
et al. Although somewhat worryingly there seem to be a dozen or so real names in there as well – maybe they are the only dozen friends he has left…
James Callaghan was of a generation that fought in WW2 (from memory he was an officer in the Guards armoured division), he was a gentlemen and so was Edward Healey but first and foremost that generation were patriots. Not small minded thuggish “in yer face” patriots but true patriots who had fought political tyranny abroad and fought for social justice at home. They may have chosen the wrong means to achieve their goals but their goals-equality of opportunity and a fair deal for all-were sound. With that generation of Labour politicians you knew that their intentions were honourable.
A much under estimated man. If you don’t think so, just google the Falklands and callaghan. Now that is how to treat people who want to invade and annex your land, not negotiations that leave the impression that you will not defend yourself if attacked.
Michael – I think you make a very important point. The post war politicians (even up to the Thatcher Government) had a good sprinkling of people who had war service, and importantly had served for their country. There is no doubt in my mind that that generation were a cut above the current set of self-interested creeps.
Agreed. Most of the current ones are self-serving creeps who are in politics for what they can get out of it.
Callaghan joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as an ordinary seaman in World War II from 1942 where he served in the East Indies Fleet and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in April 1944.
Also Healey had distinguisehd war service if my memory is correct. Didn’t agree with his politics, but he put it on the line when called.
That’s right. I think Healey was a beach-master at the Anzio landings – no picnic. Doesn’t make him a good Chancellor though……
Not one of them has the guts. Blair wouldn’t even endanger his children with comprehensive schooling even though he’d promised to abolish private education. What hope have we got of getting him or any of his type to do anything more than fight for the right to feather their own nests.
Edward Healey?? Don’t you mean Denis Heath?
Its a very good point. There was a time when a person had a career and then decided to serve through politics, now it seems that the career is politics.
Note also that Lord Carrington resigned as Thatchers Foreign Secretary over the possability that he had been in error over the Falklands, none of the current bunch from all three parties, with the exception of David Davies, seem to have the same moral fibre.
hdb123: it wasn’t the “possibility of error” at the FO, it was the fact that the FO wanted to give up the Falklands. Even the MoD civil servants weren’t keen. John Knott was in tears. Thank god for Mrs T and true patriots and soldiers like Sir Henry Leech. Also Carrington rolled out the red carpet for Mugabe and at the Lancaster Gate conference and subsequent made sure Mugabe was in power. A lot on his conscience.
Yes, but one has to remember that in those first years of Zimbabwean government, Mugabe was actually fairly moderate and was reasonably well-though of, not just in Africa but in the West generally. He certainly hadn’t become the swivel eyed madman we have now. Also, the choice at the time was between a Mugabe-led Zimbabwe and one led by Joshua N’Komo. It wasn’t an obvious choice.
swivel eyed madmen….sound familiar
Mugabe wasn’t president for the first years of Zimbabwe’s existence, it was Canaan Banana who had that dubious distinction until 1987, he was subsequently accused – and convicted of sodomy. Served six months in an open prison. His wife was given political asylum here in 2000.
We were given the impression at the time, by the media coverage, that “our man” was Ndabaningi Sithole but Mugabe beat him and his ZANU-Ndonga party. He was convicted in 1997 of conspiring against Mugabe and banned from politics.
Mugabe’s moderation in the early years can be seen in the North Korean trained 4th Brigade’s bloodbath in Ndebele areas of Zimbabwe, after he accused them of trying to overthrow him.
N’Komo would have been infinitely the better choice, and it was clear to at least a few commentators at the time (Spectator/Telegraph etc iirc) that Mugabe would be a disaster and represented thuggish and anti-democratic elements allied to the Stalinist hard left. But for some reasons of real-politik the UK Govt of the day went along with the fascist dictator-in-waiting.
It’s all there in the press archives…. I remember back then feeling the country had been betrayed by the Foreign Office of the day, and I had friends with farms there who loved and were committed to the country. (They are mostly in SA now).
I quite agree. The rot really set in in 1977 when TB and his bunch won by a far larger margin than they ever imagined. As a result, assorted researchers, office boys & girls along with anyone else they could scrape off the streets, won seats that were previously thought to be no hopers.
Since then these hoons, whose nature place in the order of things is to ask “would you like fries with that”, have continued to suck of the public teat as most of them have done all their lives. No sense of honour or decency in any of them with the bigget culprit being the one eyed son of the manse himself.
The sheer arrogance of the fuckers is exemplified by the opportunistic inclusion of the requirement to declare outside sources of income along with expenses. Only Brown and his bunch of spongers could try and construe it as a virtue that you are incapable of earning a living in the real world.
Correction 1997
I had the good fortune to be around at the time of the Falklands war, and my recollection is that its the Sun whot won it. I think if the newspapers had not made such a fuss about the thing we’d have left the Argies to their spoils.
It was the making of that woman, and it was the bravery of our armed forces that saved the day – along with intelligence supplied by Mr Reagan ( ah how hated he was by the left).
The usual incompetence of the Civil/Intelligence Services was as ever evident too. The Argies bought maps of the place from us. The Mapmakers told the authorities. Bugger all was done.
Its only by chance we British ever get anywhere. Incompetence from above seems to be the norm.
Anonymous: you are partly wrong. Its not the Sun wot won it. It was Mrs T – without her, it would not have happened. The civil servants in the FO and MoD did not want to fight – remember the defence secretary John Nott was in tears at the thought. But when Mrs T invited the First Loard of The Admiralty to speak (Henry Leech) he uttered the historic words: “Her Majesty’s fleet is ready to set sail”. The rest is history. BTW, we have good friends in the US (Casper Weinberger, particularly) to thank.
I agree that Mrs T deserves her laurel. But this page is full of rose tinted recollections. I was myself a very left wing Labour party member in 1979. I see the error of my ways now, but I have had a lifelong interest in politics, and I think with few exceptions, none of the bastards can be trusted.
Anonymous 7.56 – I would accept that none of the bastards now can be trusted. But that has not always been so in the past. The question is what happens next – will we get a good-un or a wrong-un? The future of the country depends on it.
The perfidious French supported us by commissioning Argie Exocet capability in the lead up and during hostilities of the Falklands crisis.
307 Ah but the “perfidious French” have a long historical memory and were getting some revenge for the English marauders and butcherers who occupied Paris in the 1400s during the 100 Years War.
If you think GB is welcome in EU, you forget your history. France doesn’t.
Population of the Falklands: 3,140
Total deaths: 907 (258 British).
So for every soldier or sailor who died, 3 people were able to pay tax to Britain instead of Argentina.
For every British troop killed, 12 were stopped from having to eat paella
To put it into context, if we wanted to “save” Northern Ireland from foreign opression and call it a resounding success, we’d have to kill 144,500 British troops.
That’s not a number that I can celebrate as a “victory”
Correct, and this modern career politician has to do as he/she is told otherwise that career takes a turn for the worst. This is the true legacy of Blair. Wasn’t it reported that the whips were giving the PM a list of some of the Labour rebels in the Gurkha vote? Few collars being felt, but not all? I don’t suppose Glenda Jackson needs the money so no point in working her over.
I would sum up modern politics in one phrase, when determined terrorists hijack planes and fly them into buildings killing thousands of innocent people it is NOT “a good day to bury bad news” – they’ve lost the plot.
Glenda’s Hampstead constituency was Tory for many years before 97. It fell to the Blairite tendency – but something tells me the champagne socialists of NW3 may have seen the error of their ways come the next vote!
Honour is something Brown hasn’t grasped. There will not be a “Callaghan” moment from Brown. When Brown goes it will be a relief for the country, like someone announcing the “plague” is over. Brown’s cabinet are defending him to the hilt and are in complete denial of the fact that it was Brown who has bankrupted the country, methinks the cabinet protest too much and too loudly. The current Labour government have possibly been the worst Britain has ever seen, because instead of serving the country they have been “self-serving”, Jacqui Smith being a prime example. Labour are reaping what they have sown by practising a deadly sin called “greed”. The longer Labour hang on to what they presume is power the more the people will punish them, the coming County Council elections and the European Elections will be a very good yardstick, and will show Labour how they are currently percieved by the public, and only then will “the pennydrop”. Let them send forth their failed ex-deputy PM and old spin doctors to do their worst, but Brown will not be appearing on doorsteps or in stalls in town centres anytime soon.
As you say, there will not be a Callaghan moment, however there may be a Samson moment.
Who is David Davies?
Not David Davis.
Guido you old queen you are obviously suffering from nostalgia.
They are ALL Hoons as you know full well
You were probably in a state of liquid induced emotion when you posted that
Oh dear, the delusions of youth! I was 52 when Maggie became PM, and I vividly remember not only Callaghan’s government but also those of Wilson and Attlee. Callaghan was a right-wing, socially reactionary Old Labour Big Beast, in the same mould as Herbert Morrison (Mandelson’s grandfather). He based his career on close links with the trade unions whose restrictive practices were – as Thatcher realised – bringing this country to its knees. When he returned from a Caribbean holiday to a strike which had fouled up the streets strewn with uncollected rubbish he famously said “Crisis? What crisis?”
All you youngsters who view the past through rose-tinted spectacles are welcome to him. He was a thug. Brown, though in many respects nastier and more dishonest, is a totally different kind of political animal.
I too lived through those times. A point not being given sufficient weight is the “cold war” – youngsters today may not realise that there was a real fear of nuclear war. There was a sense that certain politicians wanted us to be a soviet satellite.
We have Mrs T and Ronnie to thank for winning the cold war, which many on the left have not forgiven.
However, when history is written, there is no doubt that the damage done by Brown and NuLabour will be horrendous.
I’m partly minded to excuse Brown as he is clearly mentally ill, but the problem for the country remains.
What Callaghan actually said was: “I don’t think other people in the world would share the view there is mounting chaos”.
It was the Sun wot reported this as “Crisis, what crisis?”
The Sun at the time used to do a wonderful series of cartoons with Callaghan talking to his Muppet Show cabinet.
Things ain’t changed much.
Stalinist Broon is not far off the mark.I had occasion to do politics as part of my degree course years ago.The politics dept was a hotbed of modern day Stalinists, some of whom went from speaking fluent Russian, to wearing a Hammer and Sickle belt.
Guess which illustrious politics lecturer I missed my matter of months when he left in 1979??
Dr Broon, I presume??
I just can see Broon with long sideburns and in a Che Guevara beret. And a self satisfied smirk.
Yes Sunny Jim was a gentleman. Brown will soon be leaving Downing Street. What’s sad is that his portrait will be hung with the other Prime Minsters down the stairs. I hope someone draws a moustache on it – all of them, whatever their politics, were head and shoulders above him- he’s quite the most ramshackle PM we’ve ever had. I wonder whether Baroness U has enjoyed her weekend in her sparsely furnished Maidstone apartment? Good morning folks another nice day.
Suggest they turn the portrait to face the wall. Normal form where you have a retard in your lineage that you dont really like to talk about.
“Yes Sunny Jim was a gentleman.” ….. ????????
You’re looking back through the rose-tinted glasses of history when the emotions have cooled and memories dim. I think you’ll find that Callaghan for all his bluff avuncular image(and that’s all it was image) wasn’t actually any different to a lot of Labour politicians in those years.Nobody could survive the “smoke-filled rooms” of Labour Party and Union “Barons” machinations in the 60’s and 70’s to rise to become PM otherwise – Callaghan was adept at slipping the stiletto between the ribs of his opponents/rivals in the Labour Party as any politician I’m afraid
I don’t doubt it – but he did it with more flair than Gordon can muster. Can you imagine calling Gordon ’sunny’? and think what G’s dour ,socially inept image does for Britain abroad. None of our other Prime Minsters were so badly received internationally – Gordon has made us a laughing stock because of his brutish lack of social graces and his megalomania.
As you say at least Callaghan was able to project “an image” to the public of a “kindly uncle doing his best” – but I agree with your view – the problem is that Brown seems totally incapable of actually doing the job he’s craved for so long and he seems socially awkward and inept and an inability to accept he may actually be wrong sometimes and that he is infallible. These are bad faults in a Prime Minister at any time but particularly so in these days of “Presidential Style Leadership” and 24/7 media coverage and when you are trying to build a consensus how to deal with the recession
Sadly he will leave behind more than his potrait, he leaves behind a country he has mired in debt for generations to come, that will be his worst legacy.
It will take time but it can be resolved. Equally as important will be to put in place some sort of legislative framwork so that, if this shower ever get into power again, we will not have to sort this sort of mess out again.
Personaly I would like it to be retrospective and any evidence of a scorched earth policy treated as a capital crime.
202
Quite so.
Take it further set up an Economic War Crimes Tribunal and arraign both Bliar and Bruin’s cabinets plus bankster friends and corrupted allies, hold them to account and apply the penalty for treason.
Justice against political criminals is needed, confiscating pensions, assets etc would help redress the total evil they have wrought.
242 absolutely
Should be announced asap. Would limit the rot between now and the GE qand stop some of those juicy multi-year contracts being awarded. And it would be reassuring to know that the Hoons would be having sleepless nights like the rest of us.
In my mind there is no doubt that Broon and co. will leave no crop unspoiled or no well unsullied as they bow out ungracefully, it is after all in the nature of the labour mind set to deliberately spoil the Tories efforts. Moreover I think we should be looking very carefully at the labour B-Team (the liberal-thing-a-me-jigs), they’ll be looking for some sort of coalition so as to get a sniff of the trough and also to help spoil the joint enemy’s (Tories) efforts. It wont be long before the narrow minded Billy Bragg will be back in our faces urging the two parties to join forces even worse urging the voters to change their allegiances to keep the dreaded Tories out. As immoral as the lovers of democracy might think it is it happened at the last election and will unoubtable happen again.
Jacqboots Jacqi just off TV spinning the old, tired line…”The British Public want us to get on with the job”
No Jacqui, the British Public want the lot of you to “Get to F*CK” !
that’s like a rapist telling his victim ‘you need my love”. Smith has neither pride nor principle, she exemplifies all that is rotten within the current government.
i’m a voter and I want an election… anyone listening/ I WANT AN ELECTION
If Brown was a honourable man he would quit his job and push through a treatment for his son with CF. Instead of using his power to cure his son he is helping his mates trough at the expense of hard working families.
He has no honour – put your family first you one eyed freak.
But we all know Brown and honourable don’t belong in the same sentence!
“Instead of using his power to cure his son ”
Not sure what you mean – is he a witch doctor in his pare time?
He’s using some sort of bone throwing rituals or asking the spirits how to run the country so maybe he is. It’s the only explanation.
I’m just guessing here but I suspect the name Javelin has deep personal significance for him since that day on the school sports field when one got jammed through his temple. Since then he’s only been able to communicate in phrases found in the Daily Mail.
What sort of hoon (other than a cabinet minister floundering for an answer) uses the phrase “hard working families”?
Browns too thick to make it as anything else than a MP
Does anybody know exactly which gene/variant Gordons son has got I want to go and look up the state of the research in that area to determine how much effort is required to get the drug research past the clinical trial stage.
Guido, an excellent post with some really interesting and thought provoking comments. Blake’s7 was particularly interesting and his observation about manners,class and money was quite brilliant.
It was interesting to see how many brought Hague into the equation when talking about honesty. Certainly the name ‘Cameron’ was missing until Honest Bill’s remarks where he observed that Cameron was an appeaser! I certainly share that view. Cameron is no leader.
But I share most views on Jim Callaghan. At the 1979 general election I well remember that most people were sick to death of the Labour Government, They thought the Country was controlled by the Unions, they believed we were destined for the third world! Callaghan was not hated, and that word I dislike but it is the word that certainly comes to mind with Brown. I can find nobody with a kind word to say about him.
Dennis Healey was a communist but he was a patriot. Politicians in those days,mostly, had served in the war and had rubbed shoulders with real people in dangerous circumstances.
Today’s politicians, especially in the Labour Party, are professional politicians. School, College, University, Local Government, Parliament but no real knowledge or sense of life outside that bubble. That is why Brown and his ilk are hopeless at talking to ‘real’ people.
When did you ever see Brown take his kids to London Zoo? to the Museums? to the cinema? to the theatre? does he do anything with his children? Does he have any endearing qualities at all? But for Brown you could put up any of the Labour crowd. At least Cameron was not ashamed to be seen with his children, pushing the wheelchair etc. That I admired in him!
Guido, is there any picture, out there, of Brown pushing the pram? walking with his children? swimming in the sea? playing football(the game he loves so so so much!!) with his children? Has he ever taken his wife to the theatre? A picture of him at a theatre may have done him a favour a year ago, now it would be seen as desperation!
Let us hope that the Conservative Party read this particular blog and realise that it IS old fashioned values and principles that people want in their politicians. Honesty and clarity.
Mr Cameron should now go into a room by himself and work out if he has got the balls to be honest and straight with the people. If not hand it over to William Hague. If he can then let us know, hand on heart exactly what he is promising on the EU! on the BBC which we all consider is too big and too biased towards the left to be allowed to retain the license fee! and how deep his cuts in public services will go. He will be surprised to discover that the public want VERY deep cuts!
If he is honest people will support him. If he tries to fluff then he will not last four years.
But thank you Guido for an excellent post!
Strapworld,
We’ve seen the occasional pic of Brown awkwardly “relaxed” on holiday but very little else, as you say. Either Brown really does nothing else but ‘get on with the job’, or there is a privacy arrangement with the entire MSM which has endured remarkably well – or Brown simply does none of the normal things you mention.
I wonder which it is . . . ?
He did go running, when he was at Southwold. But then that’s what he does every day when he’s in No 10.
simply put he does none of the things a normal family man would, there’s your problem – a political mentally challenged obsessive.
He’s got a people carrier like Tony’s hidden round the back of No 10 and just loves to take Sarah and the kiddies to Alton Towers, any chance he gets. No, really.
He took his wife to Auschwitz.
Incidentally I have visited Auschwitz/Birkenau several times. It is a place still redolent of horror, torture, suffering and death. During my visits I have observed many other visitors; young, old, families, groups and their reactions: most often a sort of quiet numbness. And strange as it may seem I can honestly say that until I saw Sarah Brown apparently wiping a tear from the corner of her eye I never saw anyone else cry.
I have seen the video of the visit and although she and Brown appeared sombre she seemed OK when visiting Block 11 (the ‘death block’), the adjacent yard where executions by shooting took place, the crematorium, and the ruined gas chamber at Birkenau. By chance I suppose she seemed to display most emotion when the press were recording the signing of the visitors’ book.
Sarah Brown is a very good PR professional who knows how to exploit any situation to gain favourable press and television coverage. She was merely performing a role on the day as Labour preparation for the European Elections and to show the BNP in a poor light. Get some good film footage to strangle Nick Griffin’s publicity machine and to send a subtle warning to Labours client voters about the consequences of voting for far right parties.
Fucking Delicious!
hesr,hear
I took my family and agree with your post. There is a subdued athmosphere but non of the hysteria shown by the Brown posers who just saw it as a photo opportunity. PS I paid for my family – Gordon did it on the State – Fucker !
That’s a little unfair. That place is a truly horrible place to visit – and should be a required school trip for everyone. My wife managed to get through most of it but burst into tears whilst walking down the main path. It just overcame her all at once. I wouldn’t think anyone would need to ‘fake the tears’ at the camp.
I can’t say that I’ve been to Auschwitz but I did visit Belsen when I was 11. Even at that age it was a life-changing experience and one which, even then, helped to contexualise and firm a lot of my thinking about the world and people in it.
You know what, I don’t care if she cried in front of the cameras or not. It just dpresses me that we have reached a level of cynicism where we analyse the emotional responses of people who see the evidence of such enormity and that the media concentrate on such trivialities when other, far more important, things pass unnoticed.
Anon@ 457 & Illuminatus@ 12.46. Cynical; maybe, but set aside for a moment your own experience and check out yourself the pics & vid. of the Browns’ visit
and see what you think.
And a politician, particularly one like Brown in time of personal crisis, taking advantage of a photo op? Well, not exactly unknown or out of character is it? Get real. The fact that someone shouldn’t need to fake tears at a place like Auschwitz doesn’t mean they wouldn’t.
This has been a really interesting posting and the thread comments have been more ‘personal’ than usual and quite revealing – my thanks to all those who have taken the time to post their recollections and memories of that time period.
My memory of Callaghan (from the TV) is one of a gentleman; just out of his depth and incapable. I was still in school at that time so not really politically aware so it’s illuminating to get a wider impression of the man from posters who lived through the 70’s Labour era.
I do remember the piles of rubbish and the rats; I did an evening paper round through the Winter of Discontent and can recall the sounds of the rats in the piles of rubbish on the housing estate where I delivered the papers. I had rats running over my feet more than one occasion…
I watched a little piece of the BBC Parliament last night and I was struck by how Callaghan seemed almost polite in his acceptance of defeat at Transport House.
He was certainly well spoken.
It may have been a staged image of course, but even so I cannot imagine Brown in the same circumstances saying anything polite to Cameron.
As to the lack of noise from the Tories: the recent revelations of expenses and hateful emails have provided enough disgust of this current bunch – we do not need to be told what to think at this time. There is, of course, more (political ammo) to come with the publication of the expenses in July.
But the public have a short memory: it is only on blogs such as this that ‘Smiff and her bathplug’ have been kept alive. The public have taken note but moved on: there are far more pressing issues to be concerned about. The time to remind everyone about the bathplug (no, I’m not calling it Bathgate!), second homes, expense thefts and overall imcompetence of this current shower will be in the lead up to an election. (and actually having an election is another thread for another time….)
The drip, drip, drip of reminders could serve Cameron and Co. very well.
Will Cameron have the balls to ‘do a Maggie’?
I hope so.
This country is going to need it.
‘Smiff and her bathplug’
After another is she, what does she do eat em?
Hijack: Are we going to get a view on the British government banning Michael Savage? A right wing commentator with connections to the promotion of narcotics – you’d think Guido would be right on it.
Callaghan did not actually say ‘Crisis what crisis’ that was invented by the Sun !
** 50,057 ** The koont is going down
The Hoon was a fucking tax inspector before entering politics
and just how did he find the cash for that farm????
I hope that he is in hell.
He became a director of a bank in Cardiff – called Hodge Finance or something. Take out the `d` and `e` and you have it. Also arranged for the Royal Mint and the DVLA to relocate – greasy palms etc etc.
Sorry, Guido, but for once totally disagree with you. John Major honourable ? I don’t think so. Shafting Edwina and his infamous, cowardly role in the Margaret Thatcher coup (conveniently having some teeth seen to) are just two examples of the man’s cunning and shallowness.
He lacked a backbone, intellect, charisma and was a poltroon through and through.
Dennis, a one-off illicit shag doesn’t always mean you’re a bad person.
It does if it’s with the Currie woman.
Hmmm. Maybe you’re right.
A one-off shag. It seems as if this little assignation continued for some time, so obviously required a deal of planning and subterfuge. The were clerly in the right business for that.
That said, how many offices across the country does it happen in? And how many newspaper offices in particular, making the whole puritanical stench of hypocrisy form the press all the more emetic.
Jacqui Smith has no shame. On Sky she believes that what the public want is for Labour to “get on with the job”, complete denial of the current situation. She should not even be the home secretary following her expenses fiasco. The problem maybe the cabinet are spending too much time in the No 10 bunker, that they are unaware of what is happening in the outside world, get a reality check, the country wants a general election not a lecture on how well Gordon Brown is doing.
We all know how well he’s doing …
McMental isn’t at all well.
He ought to be sectioned forthwith.
.. and SHAME …Jacqui Smith…shame ???
(I looked after you, Jacqui, in order that you could keep troughing until June 2010. Now get out there and do your best to back me up)
Parasites.
Strapworld
Dennis Healey was a “Beachmaster” during the Normandy landings.
that meant he had to walk along the beach directing troops under withering fire. I disagree with his politics but you cant take that from the man.
Imagine Gordon ” Ive pissed me troosers” Mcmental doing that.
The wanker doesnt even have the guts to write his own books about courage, he has them ghost written just as he gets others to do his smearing.
A very nasty little hoon.
As already posted here, he was beachmaster in the Italian campaign (at Anzio).
He only wanted to publish a book about courage because JFK wrote one.
He’s a very ‘me too’ politician.
A great many men and women did brave and honourable things in their youth.Some of them still turned out to be corrupt shits in middle age and later
He was also an accomplished linguist as the head of the CBI found out to his cost when he tried to explain to Denis what the phrase Deja Vu meant.
I was 18 few days before the 79 election so my vote for Maggie T was my first vote. The impression of Callaghan at the time was that he looked, sounded and acted just like you expect a PM to do, but that his Government was incapapbel fo managing an economy/country dominated by Unions. Every news programme featured union leaders spouting forth and “consulting the members”, and BBC labour correspondents (later called Industrial Relations correspodents ) did endless pieces to camera from factory gate meetings. The country was deep in the doo-doo and sliding into oblivion.
Through his time in office, Major came across as decent (there were unfounded rumours, but we didn’t know about Currie at that point), and competent, and I think will be seen over time as a good man and a pretty good PM.
Brown……….well even from his earliest days of political prominence has come across as a rude individual (eg can’t read a dress code without wanting to offend the host), arrogant (look for the mouth wobble when he thinks he’s been clever), over-rated (despite what he thinks, he is no intellectual), bullying (listen to his language and read the stuff about Nokias,printers, smears, HM Treasury civil servants’ inside accounts etc), a liar (eg he cancelled the election because he was going to win it) and unedifyilingly cowardly (too numerous to mention, but let’s include overseeing the corrupt and fraudulent behaviouor of MPs and Lords that he has let happen and not dealt with). Oh yes, and on top of all those personal attributes, he is incompetent. Labour have a lot to apolgise to Britian for, but Brown is the icing on the cake. Let’s hope we can keep away from Labour for at least 18 years this time. Everyone laughing at him is simply not enough.
Reading the comments on this blog one can safely conclude that it is impossible to be a politician in the UK. Why should it be a distinguishing mark that a politician “pushes a pram around”? If you want honest politicians you should start by respecting them a bit more.
As for Guido’s sympathy for Callaghan it is only nostalgia. Politicians after Callaghan have not been worse. On the contrary, at Callaghan’s time the country was on the point of being taken over by the IMF. That is not the situation now, partly thanks to the way Brown ran the Treasury for many years.
The only reasson the IMF are not involved in the UK economy is that they, the IMF, say they cannot handle the staggering debt the UK has!!!
Rick – I suspect you are closer to the truth than you realise.
Respect of course is earned, not donated.
exactly. Strange that those politicians who appear to be respected are mostly dead.
“…. at Callaghan’s time the country was on the point of being taken over by the IMF. That is not the situation now, partly thanks to the way Brown ran the Treasury for many years.”
Brown spent his whole time at the Treasury fiddling the books. Is that what you mean?
Respect is earned not given by right.
Politicians need to earn respect. It is a long slow process, and in spite of what has been said, I think that Cameron is slowly earning it.
A lot of what he had done has earned my respect and there is nothing he has done which makes me disrespect him. He will grow into the job.
And before the trolls start on me; I see the country’s needs as changing from time to time and I vote according to that need. I am not a genetic Tory.
Partly because of the way Brown ran the treasury !!!!!
Brown inherited an economy in better shape than it had been for a generation. i.e after the Tories sorted the last mess out. The very reason we are in such a weak state to weather the current financial storm is the way that the halfwit Brown ran the treasury you hoon.
Respect has to be earned.
The current batch of politicians, with few exceptions, consider it better to extract as much money from the (not illegal) expenses system than earn the respect of the populace.
The expenses debate last week showed how little ( only visible by microscope) sense of public anger, or the desire for change exists in Westminster.
To rebuild trust in the system, you will need a majority of truthful MPs in the houses of parliament.
I do not agree with your statement that it is impossible to be a politician today, but I do think the comments here show the current participants are not the solution.
168… “If you want honest politicians you should start by respecting them a bit more. ”
Respect is NOT given, it is earned. None of this shower of brown stuff have done anything to earn our respect.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Did you just manage to type that last sentence before the chaps in the white coats came to take you back to the sanitorium ? If you weren’t so mentally retarded you’d be a prize tosser.
Re the petition : Why not play ZanuLabour’s game and pretend it is postal voting/Glenrothes/what have you?
Each name having a different e-mail address is all that matters. Even my cheap ISP will give me 5 of them…
Who knows, as at Glenrothes, we could finish up with more votes than electors but who is counting?
Sauce for the goose and all that.
Only scum would sink the level of the lefties.
The outcome is the outcome – and I am sure it will crush brown.
I hope the number 10 petition site stays on line for many years to come – a public record of how much the country hated brown, while labour MPs kept him in power for their own selfish interest.
FWIW: In case you don’t know – MPs are trying to steal the whole petition thing, make it ‘house of commons petitions’ rather ‘number 10 petitions’ – they want to make it more complex and put themselves in control of it…
It is essential for the Tories that the current Prime Minister Gordon Brown stays in power until the bitter end
Just like Germany & Japan ultimately benefited from their total destruction after the second world war, Britain will eventually benefit from Brown implementing his scorched earth policies.
Brown & Labour has to be allowed carry out it’s plan so there can be no return to Brownian Economics in the future.
There is a need for a strong opposition and Labour like the country need a clean start, there is a need to let this Government come to its natural end.
Brown won’t fight if he knows he can’t win. Presently he’s hoping something might crop up, but when it becomes obvious to him that he’s had it he’ll go. Flight before dishonour, so to speak.
Now c’mon Guido, an honourable socialist prime minister? Forget it. Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer to Wilson and so was part of the problem. Should have resigneda long time before and certainly should not, as a proven failure, have taken the premiership from Wilson.
Unfortunately honour and politics do not mix. Why do you think they call themselves honourable this and right honourable that?
What’s the first thing a pathalogical habitual liar will tell you? That they never lie. Honest folk don’t need to do that
OT, I see that the resign petition has now passed the 50,000 mark, has reached No 15 in the all-time chart of e-petition popularity and has even overtaken the ‘MAKE JEREMY CLARKSON PM’ joke-petition in popularity!
Sadly both mentioned petitions would be much too late to rescue poor old Britain from the fate-that’s-worse-than-death caused by Brown’s mishandling of everything he has touched. He is the only fairy in this tale!
There’s an incredible amount of ignorance on here. Callaghan was one of the more vicious manoueverers in Labour politics. And for all you Maggie worshippers – it was Callaghan who destroyed the Wilson government’s attempts to bring in trade union reform in 1969. He was in the pocket of the union barons but the rank-and-file did for him in 1978-9. As someone once said, ‘If you can fake sincerity, you’re made.’ That was Callaghan to a tee.
Callaghan made his son-in-law our ambassador to the US, epitomising the cronyism which the next Labour PM continued in such fine style.
Amidst all the hoo haa of Callaghan – he was the atypical sneering labour politician who when in Columbo during the war remarked to a young Wren who had just become engaged that he considered the ring was a capitalist bauble – one should have a little sympathy for Mrs Brown, Gordon`s mother ( believe it or not ) who has spawned an ogre. Do you think there is something in the water up there which produces genetic failings ?
Don’t mind you “borrowing” my Harpic old man but get it right please, its more commonly tagged Harridan Harpic or Hattie Harpic.
Let us all clean the same bend eh.
Don`t be such a possessive troll: a powerful cleaner can clean round two bends.
I wouldn`t know about common tagging more your bag than mine
And where would THAT get us?
It was Mick McGahey the communist. But at least he was an honest communist who openly promoted his views whereas Mr Scargill was rather coy about what he believed in. Well we knew what he wanted which was Britain to become a marxist totalitarian state using the NUM to that end. This was the bloke who refused to support the Polish Solidarność because they were aiming” to bring down a socialist government” (Moscow’s puppet regime in Warsaw).
The British government was hardly in control in the seventies and the place was in rapid terminal decline.. ripe for revolution in indeed.
It it weren’t for Thatcher we’d all be speaking Russian, comrades and there’d be posters of President Scargill everywhere you look.
I always thought Callaghan was a massive wanker. Was he the first big secret dipper of the public till, (nice farm wot).
I wonder about the secret bank accounts of the comrades of today. Expect we will see the Labor party coffers healthily return to the black when they are in opposition again soon.
I was struck by the lack of regional accents amongst the
professionals, broadcasters and pundits etc. The whole thing
hadf a Monty Pythonesque quality with only Vincent Hanna’s
Irish and Bob McKenzies Canadian exceptions.
Not a single, now compulsory, Geordie!
I was struck by the large amount of thick SE England region accents-Nowadays a much larger spectrum of accents representing a larger geographical area of the UK is normal-thank gott!
I preferred it before the regional accents, it sounded much more civilised and I could understand what was being said.
Can one charge an entire government with treason? It seems to me that in giving away our sovereignty to the degree that Labour have done, they have committed an act of treason. Callaghan knew how to play the gallery, but I wouldn’t put him down as decent, as another commetator has already pointed out he was the frontman for the union barons and blocked all attempts to reform the unions. It seems to me that Labour have consistently set about destroying the UK, and in particular, in destroying England. No. I am not a “Little Englander” but I am a supporter of the idea of a Great Britain which is at its best as a United Kingdom. None of us can claim to be “pure” Scots, English, Irish or Welsh these days, genetics show that we are all now so interelated that the only crierion is where we live.
My father once described the Labour Party as the Communist Party in disguise. Their term in office this time round supports his charge. The massive increase in powers to suppress all dissent from their perception of “decency” or “multi-culturalism”, to suppress all debate and to impose atheism and secularism while assiduously promoting Islam (A real contradiction in terms there!) echoes the Soviet model of the 1940’s and 50’s.
Brown must go. He is a bully and was an incompetent Chancellor – the mess in our finances is his legacy and his alone.
131 Anonymous – “the politics department was a hotbed of modern day Stalinists”
Well, nothing’s changed: universities are still staffed by assorted Lefties, unreconstructed old Marxists, and NuLabour supporters, especially in politics, social sciences, and teaching/nursing/social work. In many cases, it’s because they can’t cope with a proper job in the real world.
That’s why it’s important that students pay themselves for their own education.
As customers their demands will highlight the deficiencies of the leftist lecturers.
Flu.
I know its off topic but its an important point.
At the end of the day the measures being taken to control the spread of the current flu strain are going to prove inadequate. The disease is too easily spread and it is simply not possible to track down and quarantine all contacts.
The disease will be limited by the development of immunity. Immunity can be achieved by exposure or by immunisation.
In the absence of any plans for the preparation of vaccine and the immunisation of the whole population, it is infinitely better to allow the disease to spread during summer, when it will be milder with far less fatalities.
Present policy is likely to ensure a more severe outbreak next winter.
I can’t help feeling that there is a lot of politics being played with our health by many different players.
This is what happened in 1918, during the so called “Spanish flu” pandemic. The first wave arrived in spring, and was fairly mild. People who were exposed to it had partial, or full immunity to the second autumn wave, which had mutated into a more virulent, aggressive strain and killed many of those with no immunity very quickly.
Well said Moley. I have never understood the general revulsion heaped on those who go to work with a cold,who are performing a public service in keeping our national resistance up to date. I would hate to avoid the yearly sniffles for a decade and then succumb to the latest edition.
Heard a sensible comment today by a member of the GP – it’s the flu, not the plague.
Good to see that some can keep a sense of proportion.
P1: “Brown spent his whole time at the Treasury fiddling the books. Is that what you mean?”
No, I don’t think he fiddled the books. It was mostly responsible management of the budget. It was fairly balanced a lot of the time, and some social welfare was even improved. Britain as a whole had a better economy, when he left than when he started. If the budget is bad now, it is not his fault. It is the recession, something coming from outside. You should not blame him for that!
What the f**k?
The reason we’re in the mess we’re in is that, during the ‘good’ times of strong economic growth, government spending remained higher than income from taxation. NHS spending doubled without an equivalent rise in service levels. Social security spending has almost doubled, only continuing to perpetuate the ‘client state’ and provide huge disincentives for people to work, at the same time as allowing people paying higher-rate tax to claim ‘tax credits’ if they have a couple of kids.
Gordon Brown in his years as Chancellor NEVER BALANCED THE BOOKS, as was spelt out to him quite succintly by the Polish PM only last week.
GET RID OF THIS F**KING HOON http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/
50,000 and counting…
.It was my understanding that the only way that Brown kept to his own fiscal rules was by changing them at every budget.
As for the exact beginning and end of the Business Cycle, we still don’t know the answer.
Typical nulab thinking, keep repeating the lie until you believe it. Fucking unbelievable!
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Joseph Goebbels
Some social welfare was improved? His flagship tax credits system? It has overpayments designed in to them. It has an effective 70% taper rate. It has left millions of families in debt and forced up the cost of employing those on a low wage. All to pretend that it was a tax refund and not a social security benefit.
Allowing hyper inflation in the housing market, denying millions the ability to “get a foot on the ladder” unless they were prepared to lie/self declare on a mrtgage application.
The most awful mess of “housing benefit reform”, which has left the system in such a state that Social Security Commissioners turned round to a DWP representative and said, you introduced the legislation, drafted it, but have no idea of what is was for and you want us to decide that.
The “simplification” of disability benefits was in fact so much of the reverse, that the DWP themselves do not have the expertise to process the required reviews.
Large delays in the processing of job seekers allowance – even before the recession started. Leaving many literally penniless for months.
Large delays in the processing of the non complicated universal child benefit.
Thousands still left worse off over the 10p fiasco.
I can go on, but Brown especially has not helped those on the bottom rung of the ladder.
Oh dear. either I’ve had an irony bypass, or you actually believe the stuff you are writing! You cannot seriously say the economy improved over his tenure – in 1997 we were OK, but in 2009 we are bust.
Brown fiddled inflation figures, fiddled PFI (off-balance sheet accounting that surpasses Enron’s), fiddled public-sector pension liabilities, fiddled his own definition of “the economic-cycle” and fiddled any number of statistics he announced or re-announced, or re- re- announced. Result: Any official statistics issued in Britain today are not believed by the public – see what you’ve done Mr Brown?
Brown has not managed the economy well – his only “talent” was in taxing in ever more complex and intrusive ways to fuel the spending machine that he believes represents good government. Not everyone was taken in by this, but now the masses are realising what Brown’s reign of mis-management will cost them. He is the opposite of great and the opposite of capable. He needs to go now.
224 Your Society – Please tell me that was a joke on your part?
Obviously not going for the truth and respect career option then?
Are you for real??? Brown’s management of the economy has been the large scale equivalent of someone on a salary of £20k a year going out and buying a Ferrari on credit (something that a finance company somewhere would probably have approved during the alleged “boom” years that we had) – it looks great for a while and suggests the owner is successful in life, but eventually it has to be paid for everything goes tits up.
As someone has already said, please tell me you’re joking Yoursociety, because if you’re not, I want details of who looks after you, and why they are granting you unsupervised access to the internet so that I can warn them that you’re embarrassing yourself in public.
Its Global isn’t it? Like the global housing crash and the global unemployment crash and the global stock market crash. Nothing to do with Gordon: he wasn’t even in the country when it happened.
Who the fuck allowed the credit expansion? Greenspan?
Too fucking easy by half. If you believe this load of bollocks then you are just as stupid as they think you are
You can’t claim ‘honour’ on expenses.
Oink oink, smear smear
Remember Gordon,
I still have the photo of you in nappies riding that rocking horse and nibbling at a lolipop
And I know where you live.
Peter Voldermandelson
..and Gordon has a pic of you hanging out of the back of JK Rowling, you sneaky old turncoat, Peter.
Callaghan was indeed a decent man, but not very bright. Like John Major, it was his Cabinet and ministers who brought him down, in Callaghan’s case by great incompetence and in Major’s case by disloyalty.
Callaghan, like Brown, was stitched up by a smart operator who did the flit, pocketed the cash then sniped, via proxies, from the sidelines before it all went completely to rack and ruin. Callaghan was Wilson’s set up patsy just as much as Brown is Blairs.
Ted Heath was an interregnum who had no chance as he was seen as a ‘Tory Grandee’ and out of touch.
I was a student during the three day week, power cuts and all the rest. If anyone wants to know what it was like, a holiday in Nepal right now would give you a good idea.
Callaghan was indeed a decent man, doing his best in difficult circumstances. In a famous speech, he once used the phrase, “I tell you in all candour….”. Candour is something unknown to Blair, the master of spin (spin means lies), half truths and presentation. Under Brown, this has reached a stage where stealing money by government Right Honourable (?) ministers, Noble(?) Lords, this is what is expected. It is how you enrich yourself at the public’s expense. Just look at what Smith (Home Secretary) Beckett (former foreign secretary) and Baroness Uddin (why was she pushed up into the Lords? What are the outstanding achievements that justified her ennoblement? Stealing taxpayers’ money?) If she is noble, then the word has no meaning. These are but a few examples. Blair said his priority when first appointed as PM was “ed-jerk-ay-shun”. Today, after twelve years in office, they are still fiddling around with education and exams. Why did they not get it right after say two years in office and then move on? It was just presentation, without any substance. Now we have Brown, the unelected Prime Minister, the man who wrecked the UK economy, aided by the appropriately named Balls, pretending that he knows how to deal with the crisis. Oh for a man like James Callaghan, who was honourable and honest. How low we have sunk and how much worse can it get?
You have to look at the Blair/Brown years as a vast social engineering project. After the shock of the Thatcher years labour knew that society had changed. For the first time, the traditional labour voters – the working classes – had voted conservative.
They had been given the chance of bettering themselves, and had done so in their droves. There were still quite a few grammar schools about and these were creating social mobility. Bright, working class kids got themselves an education, started to think for themelves, and surprise surprise stopped voting labour.
So the Blair project needed a new supply of labour voters. This was achieved by
1/Believing that diluting the tory voting population with mass immigrantion – all gratefull to labour for letting them live here – would produce more labour votes. (actually many immigrants are much more switched on than the government gives them credit for and they quickly saw through labour)
2/Downgrading educational stardards. Can’t have kids learning to think. Far better to use schools to indoctrinate the kids with labour’s pet subjects, but ignore basic standards of literacy and numeracy.
3/ Create a massive state sector. Simple really, the more diversity officers you employ, the more potential labour voters you have.
4/Create a massive benefits culture. Again, the more people sucking on the state teat, the more potential labour voters you have.
And 5/ make sure you have a compliant media – lead by the BBC – to promulgate these policies.
Easy peasy.
You are correct. Labour has created what used to called a Rotten Borough, where the candidate paid the voters to elect them. As you say, now labour buys votes by creating people dependent on the State for their benefits and/or jobs. They have corrupted politics and the country. It will take years to recover, if ever.
Example of vacuous activity by BBC “We’re now going live to Downing Street as Minister’s go in to to-day’s crucial Cabinet meeting” – shots of empty street apart from lone PC -”Er obviously we’re a bit early!” “Or”, says a colleague”they’re a bit late!” Duh ! Back to studio!!!
Well maybe Callaghan was an honourable prime minister, but to who. He steadyfastly stuck to the unions and the principles of his friends and the country almost went to the wall. I didn’t agree that thatcher had to destroy britians manufacuring industry, she did that of her own free will, I cant blame callaghan for that. But no way did callaghan bring honour to this country. No way at all
Clearly you are a Labour supporter who has enjoyed the benefits of the education system, under their wretched regime. Why do I say that? Because you cannot write correctly in your own language. You are unable to spell correctly, you do not know when to use a capital letter for a proper noun, (do you even know what a proper noun is?) and you do not use punctuation correctly. Take some lessons in the correct use of English and then return to this Blog and let us have your opinions.
If I were on Labour’s greasy pole I’d be pushing hard to ditch Gordon asap.
The prospect of two or three terms in opposition is unlikely to be part of too many personal grand plans for world domination!
Clearly many assume Labour is likely to loose in any case but if you were there, in the thick of it so to speak, desperate to strut your stuff, then you’d take a 10% chance of success over 0% any day wouldn’t you!
Labour also needs a large slab of cash, and who wants to back a sure fire loser?
The key in my view is Tony. Yep, good old Tone has the capacity to make a big difference. Now of course we all know he achieved sweet FA but in a way he is associated with ‘better times’ in the minds of some. Gordon is also perceived to be his nasty adversary (smiling limo shot) so there would be widespread satisfaction at him getting his comeuppance and maybe a sense that Labour were back on track.
If Labour were able to pluck someone new, unsullied and able and if Tone was to publicly give him the nod, then we might have a little fight on our hands!
The economy is fucked but will it get much worse? and even if it does the ‘Credit Crunch’ story has already had the arse torn out of it. Peston no longer rocks.
Sure our grand children will all die in debt but that story will also dissolve away into everyday life after a while – “I’d fucking have Ronadido for hundred and ten grand a week me…..” etc.
People don’t ‘want’ Dave, at this stage they just don’t want Gordon.
This is all Gordon’s fault.
Strangers in the night…..da da da da da da da da
O/T, but have I taken too many drugs already this morning?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5276310/Oompa-Loompa-Spiderman-and-the-Teletubby-Tinky-Winky-held-after-brawl.html
I refuse to look at any Telegraph Links.
I had a quick look yesterday and it was awful. Mary Piddle is supporting Brown, Heffer is an outcast, and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard desperately needs an offer from a decent and intelligent employer.
The Telegraph has moved so far to the left so quickly that it will shortly collide with itself coming in the other direction.
Quarantine is the only cure.
Riddell’s piece on why ‘Brown is better’ today is risible
There are still good things to read int he Telegraph, inc Heffer, love him or loathe him
He’s spot on today: http://tinyurl.com/dbk7tv
“… It is the absurdity of tribalism that all but a few brave souls of integrity – the Frank Fields and the Charles Clarkes – feel the need to keep saying how wonderful a tribal leader is when it is palpably clear to everybody else that he has had it. It is time these people stopped worrying about their silly little party and started to worry about what they are allowing it to do to our country. ”
Pritchard, Randall, Daley and esp Booker are still worth reading, always, among a few others.
The ‘resident Labout insider’ – currently Riddell – is NEVER worth reading, all they do is spout proaganda. It’s shaming for a broadsheet to pay such people – they are not reporters
o/t but the beeb is publishing another of jackboots inverse presumption of innocence http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8033060.stm
A “presumption in favour of exclusion” was introduced that meant it would be up to the individual concerned to prove they would not “stir up tension” after arrival.
UK “Least Wanted List Published” Home office list of radicals, extremists and ner do wells not allowed in the UK.
If only we could get the Hoon Brown on it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8033060.stm
Did you notice that half of them are muslims? Now why do you think they are keeping them out? Are we prejudiced against them, or are they really dangerous people who want to turn this country into am islamic state under sharia law. Let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.
Do you mean people like the democratically elected Dutch MP Geert Wilders?
Might it have anything to do with birthrates?
This is pretty alarming:
I suspect Michael Wiener (aka Savage) is banned because he’s an old Jewish beatnik lefty who got mugged by reality and took a sharp turn rightwards. He must love the BBC assessment of him which makes him sound like Attila the Hun on steroids!
I was 11 when Maggie came to power.
My overriding memory of that time was that of everyone going on bloody strike and my great uncle constantly exclaiming in digust “stupid lot of buggers” in reference to union bosses, labour government, etc.
And “someone ought to put a bullet in him” in reference to Scargill.
Oh happy days!
Besides being well-adjusted compared to the monsters of today, Callaghan had served in the Forces during the war and thus had some ideals and common humanity. He also knew how hard life had been and would be for a lot of people. He wasn’t avid for money, nor did he need spin doctors etc to tell him what to do or think.
He might not have been the most inspirational of PMs, but I endorse Guido’s comments 100%.
No “Son of the Manse” he – Callaghan he was born in Portsmouth and his Dad was a Petty Officer in Royal Navy.Young Jim iniitially became a Tax Inspector and then in April 1942 joined the Navy as an Ordinary Seaman working his way up to a commission as a Lieutenant in April 1944 – I think the nearest NuLabour has to that record is John Prescott who served as a Steward with Cunard. But of course in comparion you also had Major Healey;Lt Colonel Heath and Brigadier Powell but they were different times
Little Prescott.
My Dad’s a very important politician, he used to work for Cunard.
Schoolfriend.
My Dad’s a teacher, he still does.
Powell had been a professor of Greek at 25, became a private soldier when war broke out and ended it as a Brigadier.He was buried in that uniform
I notice a great deal of mist eyed fondness for Callaghan amongst people who were not adults when he was PM.There are a number of well balanced comments by people who WERE.Universally the latter class him as of similar ilk to the scum presently in office and they are right to do so.I was a young RAF officer in the late ’70s and helped to run the fire services while the firemen, amongst many others, were on strike.That oaf, Healey, had us in hock (again) to the IMF, who imposed a measure of financial discipline.Callaghan was totally in the pocket of the Union Barons and had in fact shafted Castle in 1969 over her proposals to reform industrial relations.In 1951 the Conservatives inherited a shattered nation and in 13 years gave us properity on a universal scale.Wilson and Callaghan and their cronies contrived to bring the country to its knees by 1979, when we were saved by Mrs Thatcher.By 1997 we had unprecedented prosperity, even if Major was in many ways a poor PM.And now, 12 years later?
Callaghan was unable (or unwilling) to make the tough decisions needed to get the country out of trouble. Thatcher did that for him.
Brown is unable (or unwilling) to make the tough decisions need to get the country out of trouble. Cameron will……..?
I fear Cameron won’t. Don’t think he’s got the bottle.
We will have to see.If he ducks the issues he can expect a kicking from the blogosphere
Spot On.
Yes, yes and yes again. But I still respect Callaghan. However, Wilson, Healey and the others were all rubbish. Healey was nothing more than an incompetent bully, as Brown is today, who had to obtain a loan from the IMF because the country, as a result of Labour policies and Union involvement, was insolvent. Never was there a more incompetent member of Parliament and Government than Anthony Wedgewood Benn , now Tony Benn. Once a member of the aristocracy with all the benefits that brings in terms of inherited wealth and education, he now poses as a man of the people. He suppresses his record as a keen supporter of the Militant Tendency, a group that infiltrated the Labour Party and brought it so low that it was out of office for eighteen years. He supported, with taxpayers’ money but not his own naturally, companies that were not viable and which should have been left to fail. Taxpayers’ money is easy to come by and spend. That is standard Labour policy and we have seen the present administration pursue it to the ultimate, where we are virtually insolvent. Benn, now an “elder statesman” is regularly dredged up by the BBC, that paragon of impartial reporting, to pontificate about events. In Benn’s case, pontification means telling lies about his own and Labour’s record. Let us sweep them all away at the June elections and the subsequent General Election.
“Not avid for money”.Is that 5 farms Callaghan then?
If only those sharp shooting Kurdish chaps had turned up at McMentals “wedding” (I bet the Hoon had his fingers crossed) we wouldnt have milk churn legs and her fat Scottish poofter turkey baster operative defiling Downing street.
What is it with the wives of Labour Prime Mincers?
They are all fucking dogs
Say what you like about Cameron but at least he pulled a nice piece of totty, brains, style ,beauty.
McMental seems to have “married” (that always makes me laugh) the sort of woman that you see behind the till at a motorway service station.
Sarah Brown is a fag hag. She’s a PR pro brought in to give Brown cover from the gay rumours that were threatening to stop him taking over from Blair.
Poor Gordo also had to stop his gay bachelor holidays to Cape Cod.
Not that I’m in any way going to join in this completely unfounded slur on Gordon’s butchness those who heard it at the time will remember how everso tetchy he got when the fragrant Ms Lawley pushed him on the issue of being a whoopsie on D.I.D.
There is no connection and you would be a tory and a racist to make one.
Look up my name on Google
I thought we had established the principle that politicians are fair game but insulting and smearing their family is not.
No, it’s only smearing whilst being paid by the taxpayer to work in the civil service that we may have a major issue with, independent of whom is targetted.
As Guido commented to the Independent yesterday, the difference between smears and tittle-tattle is that the perpetrator of smearing KNOWS that it is false.
Does anyone know if Mr Brown is straight or that his marriage is not a convenient sham, or whether there are no motorway service ladies that resemble Mrs McBruin ?
“I thought we had established the principle that politicians are fair game but insulting and smearing their family is not.”
I was under the impression that Sarah Brown was a member of Gordon Browns staff rather then his family as the whole marriage thing was a publicity sham, and merely part of Labours spin/image operation to make Gordon more appealing. She does an excellent job as living with such a repulsive creature really can’t be easy
Moley, we also agreed that once a spouse starts opining in public, prancing about and speaking on stage at political conferences, they become fair game.
Following that rule we’d never have been allowed to say anything rude about Cherie.
Are we only allowed to be rude about spouses if they are grasping hoons as well?
We rest our case :-)
Glad that’s sorted then.
Even when she’s dressed up she looks like a bag lady.
In this case I stand corrected.
I resemble that remark
yes those guys at least had some decency – Brown is from the make it up and never deliver school, and not give a shit about it.
A cynical scottish Hoon at best and that is on a good day
I’ve looked into your comments, accepted the responsibility of getting it fixed as that’s what hard working families would expect from me, so I’ve now asked for a report which I expect may be available to me no later than Autumn 2012 when we will then schedule a debate to consider the consequences of any recommendations just as soon as that debate can be scheduled into the next sitting of Parliament.
That’s what this country expects of me – and that’s exactly what I inend to deliver.
(Dropping jaw in that particularly annoying way before talking another load of trash)
You can fool some of the people ALL of the time as some 26% of our potential voters will testify
Honourable but incompetent. We are back to his times again, but where is a Mrs Thatcher to sort it out.
Honourable?!! This lot? Honourable?!!!
You are, of course, jesting. Please say you’re jesting.
(Wearily) how many more times: CALLAGHAN WAS DISHONOURABLE AS WELL AS INCOMPETENT
If my memory serves me correctly “sonny jim” was not so much dishonourable as virtually hamstrung by the trade unions over pay bargaining and who ruled the country – the unions or the government.He called an election to get a mandate from the electorate and would have had to have made some very hard decisions which in the event the voter trusted Thatcher with rather than Callaghan because everyone was completely fed up of the country and the economy being brought to its knees with wildcat strikes every time the likes of Scargill or Jones did not like what a Labour government was saying.
The economy even then was on its knees and the imf had already been approached by Labour clutching the begging bowl.
What frightens the life out of me is the vast sums the present incumbent is borrowing to pump up a false dawn in time for an election next year. He literally is mortgaging our children’s future in an attempt to save his own miserable neck.
Hopefully Brown will get ousted by his party in the coming months thus making him the only prime minister ever to have neither won or lost a general election. Viva La Democracy!
A unique kind of humiliation – similar to a football substitute then being substituted himself when the manager realises a) he made a gross error of judgement or b)the substitute was even worse than the player that went before !
The football manager then looks at the bench to see Alan Johnson looking back at him as his only available option.
OMG he thinks to himself ….
As the opposition ram another goal home to make it 6-0 and 30 mins left on the clock.
The “least wanted list” has been published today
Why is Jacqui Smith’s name not on it ?
We should be told
She’s in charge of the list, so will Tippex here own name off it along with Brown, Balls/Cooper, Harman, Uddin, Mandy, Hoon, Miliband (x2), Blears, Purnell, Martin, McNulty, Mr Smith/Timney or whatever, Hewitt and Jowell (yes, I know, but I do like to harbour a grudge).
Well lets put the grasping Uddin right back on and right now.
Are there any honest cops left? She’s a crook.
(Yes that’s right Carter-FRuck, a crook who professes a religion which punishes such people by slashing off their hands, is she about to meet her fate?)
Ignorant and rude, Brown bottles it when an underling challenges his vile behaviour….
Hold the phone, it’s grumpy Gordon Brown
By Ephraim Hardcastle
Last updated at 11:50 PM on 04th May 2009
Without wishing to add to Gordon Brown’s problems, I hear he’s unpopular with Downing Street staff.
One of whom says: ‘He won’t say good morning. Waves people away when they approach. Has a terrible temper and is always throwing things.
‘A switchboard operator rang him back the other day and said they wouldn’t put up with being spoken to like that. Brown had to apologise.’………..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1177275/EPHRAIM-HARDCASTLE-Hold-phone-grumpy-Gordon-Brown.html
Manners maketh man.
William of Wykeham, Motto of Winchester College and New College, Oxford
As henry James remarked, “manners are small morals”
Bad manners are the sure sign of a disregard for others.
(I understand btw that Cherie was lathed by the staff at Chequers – unlike Maggie and Norma)
Callaghans widow, Margaret Jay, seems to be doing very nicely. She swans around like Lady Muck in Castletownshend, West Cork with all the other Labour luvvies holed up round there, particularly Greg Dyke in Skib, and Jeremy Irons in his pink castle.
Some mistake I think.Callaghan’s wife was called Audrey and she died 10 days before him.They did die extremely wealthy however, which they had not been before C entered politics
Sorry, Callaghan’s daughter, not widow!
Now you have a point there!Another wealthy Labour dynasty. Hopefully all of them will be clogs to clogs in 3 generations
Jay was of course a complete disaster when in charge of anything (eg Washington embassy catering then House of Lords). Another complete lightweight only there because her daddy had been PM. Makes you want to bring in a meritocracy and get rid of all that dynastic stuff that Labour people go for – Mandy would have to work for a living for a start.
Peter Jay was appointed Ambassador in Washington when his father in law was PM.Nepotism?Normal Labour policy
Personally I liked Sunny Jim very much but his daughter was a nightmare.Whilst the wife of the British Ambassador to Washington,she had a public affair with a journalist.She always looked after number one and so was at home with New Labour.Known for her hypocracy over private education-good for her kids,bad for everyone else’s.
Indeed, Bergen – Margaret Jay’s affair was with Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame) who was married to writer Nora Ephron (When Harry met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle) at the time. Ephron wrote a very good and funny novel, “Heartburn”, about it, which was later filmed with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.
Ephron described the character based on la Jay as looking like ‘a giraffe with big feet’.
Bruin will have his overworked eye on the European gravy train now. Some cushy new position will magically be created Mandy style. Kinnock made shedloads more from it than he ever did before.
The popes catholic
Bears defecate in the woods
MPs trough first then serve their electorate if its convenient.
And Dolly Parton sleeps on her back.
See her Wiki entry for a rundown of her utter hypocrisy when in power – the usual Labour stuff: one type of school is good enough for you lot – but I went to private school and so will my kids!
Champagne socialists are the bitter end, imo, and the Callaghan/Jay dynasty typifies them
Somebody’s slipped uppers into Polly’s coffee.
She thinks McDoom can turn the PO into a triumph
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/05/post-office-privatisation
Just say ‘no’ Polly.
You’ll feel much better in the long run
Bowen, do you really believe that a politician who says “I tell you in all candour” is being candid? Cato Street Conspirator (182) hits off Callaghan to a tee.
I always wondered how Callaghan was able to afford his Sussex farm. I’ve found some of the comments quite illuminating.
Then there was the business of Callaghan scuppering Barbara Castle’s “In Place of Strife”, which would have put in place some trade union reforms and possibly prevented the “Winter of Discontent”. I always thought Callaghan was far too much in hock to the unions.
Sussex was where he had his main farm; he owned 4 others as well, which his family certainly did not own before he went into politics
Sorry Guido Callaghan certainly was not honorable were he changed the rules on democracy for party political purposes. http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2478375.0.Callaghan_killed_plan_for_vote_on_independent_Scotland.php
At least Callaghan was normal. Gordon Brown is a freak. He is barely human.
Yes, he was your normal corrupt, greasy, self -seeking, greedy, weak and vicious Labour politician!
Ditch Brown
Appoint Johnson
Sorted!
Sorted for whom? Our poor country, the Labour party, Johnson, ex postmen,affable fools, placemen?
That would depend entirely what you were trying to sort.
Johnson – the man who runs the National Death Service. He’s doing a great job there.
Boris?
Dear Mr Anonymous (you do get about don’t you?)
Just because a man is not mad, anal,self-obsessed,corrupt,vicious,brooding and has innumerable other character defects does not make him/her fit to be Prime Minister!
And not bother with an election? Again?
Johnsons a wanker. Bound to fail. Try Frank Field, the only labour MP trusted by the electorate
Read all about the National Death Service
Guido,
A wee techie thing for you. Having just discovered what they are about, I’ve noticed that your ‘favicon’ is missing, according to your web source script it should be at:
http://img.order-order.com/gf_icon.ico
but it ain’t. It used to be there, rather than admit minor finger trouble I recommend MI5/fivebellies get the blame.
Works for me
Nah mate, I was there and they were a shower of shit. Callaghan was a useless shit who knackered the country, lost government for a generation and sulked for the rest of his life. Being unemployed for 5 years back in the 80’s I despised the conservatives, and Thatcher in particular, but I have to concede that they did get things going again.
If I suddenly acquired a large farm in Sussex for no apparent reason, I’m sure the Inland Revenue would be very interested. I wonder why senior commie politicians were in those days, and perhaps still are today exempt from the tax inspector.
Or Michael (man of the people) Meacher with his 12 properties
If you can’t get rich by going into politics, what’s the point?
An honest politician?That is an oxymoron, and Meacher (not the poster) is a moron
Wow, thats double gibberin’ Jack Straws.
What is at stake here is not whether Jim Callaghan was as good as gold, but how vile, perfidious, dishonest, septic, and deluded Gordon Brown is by comparison. Even the most mild-mannered students are breaking with the PC culture to call him “The Evil Eye” and “Son of Cyclops.”
The thread begunby Guido put forward the premise that Callaghan was the last honourable PM.Some have agreed while thos eof us who remember the facts have dissented.You are amongst friends in your description of Brown but it is of almost equal importance not to forget the truth.Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to relive them.I believe the last 12 years support my point
Whatever you thought of Margaret Thatcher’s policies, she was honourable: what you saw and heard was what you got. She was also incorruptibe, didn’t line her own pockets, and was faithful to her spouse.
Her son’s behaviour left something to be desired, but that seemed more of an embarrassment to her than something she encouraged. Labour politicians on the other hand seem particularly prone to the dynastic urge – parliament is currently full of people who would not have got where they are without family connections. Yet they claim to abhor the hereditary principle! Stinking hypocrites
Yes, and more and more people bravely and quizickly alluding to Mr Brown’s recent marriage and family, having previously spent much time on Cape Cod holidays. It started in America, as he always reminds us, but what does that phrase really mean?
I agree with Muppet, the Labour government then, in common with the current shower, just could not govern.
Conspiracy Theory – http://www.theyworkforyou.com
Having no response from this website all morning – what’s going on – have they all officially stopped working for “us” and decided to just continue working for themselves ?
What ARE they hiding ?
Anyone else been able to find out what their MP is up to this morning ?
Working now. Just goes to show Two Dinners Watson reads this blog, eh ?
Are you sure it’s only two dinners? By the look of him, I would have said it’s at least four.
The link seems to be working.
If Gordon Brown ever tried to throw anything at me he would have to breathe through his ears until he got my boot surgically removed from his mouth.
Yes – but you’re presumably not dependent on him for a job or to keep your position are you ? It’s the old Boss syndrome – How many times has your Boss bawled you out in front of others etc I doubt you actually said anything back and it’s the same with Brown I’m afraid.Fear of how you’re going to pay the mortgage is a great deterrent on actually sticking one on the boss whether he be Brown or not I would suggest. Of course if you’re financially independent or win the lottery most of us keep our views to ourselves although we probably think “Wanker” to ourselves and then go and metaphorically “kick the dog!”
Very good point. They know when they’ve got you by the short n curlies. It used to be the same situation with me – listen respectfully, and soak up all that shit. With a mortgage, kids etc that is nothing to be ashamed of, or cowardly just pragmatic.
These days however with the house almost paid for and nearing my goal of complete financial independence I give much less of a fuck. I quite enjoy telling those with so-called power and authority (young and old) the kinds of things they don’t like to hear.
Actually I have always been outspoken, but with age my words tend to be much less diplomatic and far more censorious! Watching someones facial expression change from smug to astounded is always enjoyable…
It’s the old Boss syndrome – How many times has your Boss bawled you out in front of others etc I doubt you actually said anything back and it’s the same with Brown I’m afraid.F
My boss has bawled me out exactly once. I told him, in front of everyone, that his behaviour was completely inapropriate and insisted he treated me with the respect I deserve as a professional. He yelled, stormed off and then came back to apologise later. NEVER let a senior treat you with disrespect. I don’t understand all these people who are apparently letting Brown yell, scream and throw things at them. Have some backbone and tell him where to go. If he fires you then there is always an employment tribunal to go to. Can you imagine Brown letting it go that far? I’m sure there would be a rather handsome payoff instead…. Maybe there already has been?
As “Sunny Jim” once said, he was proof that anybody could get to the top.
Look at me, pa!
As opposed to Gordon who said he was a po*f and anybody could get to the top.
You mean “anyone could get on top”, surely …
or behind I suspect
Perhaps they’re having a big pow-pow about Baroness Uddin’s spectacular fraud, or whether it’s time Gordon retired to spend more time with his family, or was blown up in a “terror” attack packed with swine ‘flu and remaindered copies of Draper’s book.
My uncle had the misfortune to be a script-writer for Arthur Scargill, and even he said that Scargill was an ungrateful, selfish and rude Hoon.
Sometimes it takes a Hoon to fight a load of Hoons. Water finds its own level.
Why is everyone anonymous here?
Stop using my name please. I’m the real McCoy Annonymous
Fuck the Hoons.
Has anyone seen the Harpic comment on her Equalities Bill reported today?:
‘Socialism in one clause’
Hoons.
The Last Honourable Labour Prime Minister as compared with The Least Honourable Labour Prime Minister… what a difference an ‘e’ makes, eh Guido?
FACT: There has never been an honourable Labour Prime Minister
I think you will find there has never been an ‘Honourable Prime Minister’, full stop.
Pitt the Younger
Sorry to take issue – Clement Attlee – he was a modest and decent man but then again as Churchill said “A modest man with plenty to be modest abount!”
Conceeded generaly 391.
BUT.
Elected at 24years of age,
didn’t he impose Tax on people to pay for the Crown’s deficits?
How honourable was that?
“what a difference an ‘e’ makes, eh Guido?”
Our host has already assured us the “e”s are all behind him.
512 Anonymous.Attlee was quiet and decent and threw away Marshall Aid on nationalising our industries instead of lending the money on for rebuilding, thus wrecking the country even further
Which only offset war reconstruction until the 1960’s
Does anyone think that The Liberal, Fabian press have become the modern equivalent of the 1970 unions.
They wield enormous power and influence, yet they are unelected…and in the case of the BBC unaccountable to the people.
They also seem to hold the general population (middle and working class) in complete contempt…sometimes bordering on hatred.
The question is………..
Will Cameron have to break their stranglehold as Thatcher did wit the Unions.
Freedom of speech enforced by government diktat?
Freedom of speech is always guaranteed by the State, so yes.
We have no freedom of speech in the MSM. When did you last hear the BBC grill a minister about the need to cut taxes?
This puts it all into perspective, really. They are starting to recover the bodies.
http://thatsnews.blogspot.com/2009/05/wwi-bodies-to-be-recovered.html
I’ll check for my two Great Uncles, still officially listed as missing in action.
A couple of months ago, I lifted the carpet in a bedroom and found the obligatory old newspapers linng the floor below. One was a copy of The Scotsman from the late 70’s with a leader reporting on a visit to Scotland by Mrs T, in which she stated that the appearance on incompetence by the Government was part of a deliberate strategy to facilitate the take over of more and more companies and institutions in pursuit of a socialist utopia.
I chucked it in the recycling.
I wish that I had framed it
I found them. It wrecked the family farm business. It was such a bloody waste, the First World War.
Yes I went and walked three battlefields last year in Belgium and France where my grandfather and two great-uncles died. The monuments out there are a powerful reminder of useless governments and the evil they preside over. Lions Led By Donkeys someone wrote of those times, and it was true of government as well as the military top brass that were in charge.
Alan Clarke (yes, THAT one) wrote it, later turned into ‘Oh What A Lovely War!’
Alan Clark (yes, THAT one) wrote it, later turned into ‘Oh What A Lovely War!’
This was in my inbox this morning:-
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn’t always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I’m A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.
I watched (some of) that yesterday and thought exactly the same thing, Guido. It is quite remarkable that, in only 30 years, the culture of politics has changed from ‘Sunny’ Jim Callaghan’s honesty and sincere demeanour to the current raft of soundbites, sleaze and control-freakery.
Particularly impressive was his resignation speech when he was being heckled by that awful CND woman (I forget her name) – he dealt with it with courtesy even though none was being shown to him. Compare that with the 2005 Labour conference where octogenarian Walter Wolfgang was immediately manhandled out of the arena and arrested for far less an infraction.
It’ll also be interesting to see how the outgoing Jacquie Smith reacts when being interviewed on her imminent “retirement” compared with the quiet, calm dignity of Merlyn Rees when he was faced with obvious defeat.
As Blakes7 eloquently said above, in those days successful politicians were experienced, honourable, properly educated and well brought-up. Nowadays they are uncouth failures of previous employment who have found their limited skills are more than adequate to jump on the political gravy-train.
Callaghan as saint? I don’t think so.The 70s was not some Golden Age; we had heath, Wilson and Callaghan for goodness’ sake!
Certainly not a saint, no. Far from it. Any discussion of his policies, party or supporters would have seen me descend into full rant mode.
It was simply a comment on politicians’ relationship with the media and public back then.
It was your description of Callaghan’s “honesty and sincere demaenour” with which I take issue.I agree he was a gracious loser, but loser he was in every sense except stuffing his coffers full
O/T
Guido, any news of McBride’s e-mails requested in your FOI request?
(As if you don’t know the contents already!!)
I wonder if they are being held back as the nuclear option should an election be called? There is speculation they are really, really nasty – involving Camerons dead son etc.
Callaghan and ministers around Thatcher were the last to fight in WW2. Consequently people had the experience of judging others on the character and nothing else. People of all backgrounds fought and died together. Lumley’s, Father was Gurkha officer whose life was saved by the bravery of a Gurkha was won the VC. Brown , who lacks Callaghan’s integrity was incapable of recognising that Lumley was absolutely determined to honour the Gurkhas because he is so lacking in this basic decency. Brown’s temper tantrums with staff reveals much of his character; Thatcher was always polite to those who served her. Much of the middle class left wingers have always ridiculed good manners as bourgeois whereas the old traditional working class , especially the craftsmen always prised good manners- Callagh was a CPO in the RN during WW2 and sunday school teacher. When the Labour changed from being dominated by Methodism and the qualities of hard work and honesty to Trotskyism/Marxism , they became bitter and twisted.
When the Labour Party was full of craftsmen and those who undertook dangerous work they appreciated team work which requires honesty – do what you say , do what is expected of you and admit mistakes so they can be rectified. Hardly any Labour MP can be said to have undertaken character building work prior to entering politics.
Good post mate, my family were all Labour (working class through and through, not dossing class) my old man started on t’factory floor lad and had enough suss to work with the some other lads at the self same factory to start a business that went on to make tons of money and employ plenty more working class people as it grew.
In his later years he told me that the Labour party (and this was under Wilson) were only interested in keeping the working man in his place, on t’factory floor and voting Labour in the class war. This could be easily translated into today’s mode of thinking from the socialists, but now it is keep them on ‘benefits.’ When he was an apprentice in the cabinet making trade he was told “don’t get above your station, lad” by union/labour twats – he ignored them and, we benifited as a family and so did hundreds more who worked for him.
He always told me Labour were (and are) the real oppressors of the working class as they will always live the life of the champagne socialist while keeping their ‘comrades’ in the same position as a worker/drone for life.
He told the party to get fucked in Harold’s time and as with so many actions that your old man has done you get to appreciate how right they were as you grow older.
I’m glad Guido made this post because I’ve been thinking along those lines and then dismissing the thought because I’m getting to be old and therefore come into the old fogey category. But Number 6’s Dad was right too in that Harold and his successors believed that the working man should “know his place”. However, the Labour front bench of Harold’s day were, I think, well-intentioned, and they were also competent and had qualities that you will spend a long day looking for in the present lot. People like Smith, Balls, Cooper and Harman would have been fortunate indeed to have been selected, let alone elected, and might have risen no higher than PPS in the 1960s. If you think of some of the survivors of those years like Shirley Williams and Roy Hattersley you may understand what I mean.
Mary Wilson once turned down a fee of £33 for the publication of one of her poems because she was sensitive to the idea that she shoud not exploit her husbands high office. Compare that with Cheri Blair’s activities while her husband was in office.
I keep asking “How did we come to this?”
How did we come to this?
BRILLIANT!
Blake’s 7 post is hilarious. You talk of class, and how it is breeding and family lineage essentially (a prehistoric idea), yet you show absolutely none yourself. You scoff at people who do well in life and make a good living as no matter how much money they have they cannot buy such an upbringing as yours, yet there is scant evidence in your post that you can articulate yourself with any dignity.
At your age I thought life may have taught you something, anything. Apparently not. If you’re a dying breed a should only hope they hurry up and finish you off.
I think you have completely missed the point.
You are to be pitied rather than reviled, Sir.
Thank you for your considered contribution to this blog.
Cordially,
You’re an arsehole.
When I worked in Barnsley I had a friend who was a Colliery face worker, he was a really nice, decent, kind and well mannered bloke who taught himself to paint and was an extremely good artist. I have had three of his pictures on my walls for years.
444 continued.
It’s nothing to do with family or money, it’s something else.
Why does the Labour Party have aristocratic scum in it?
How is it that Margaret Thatcher was a grocer’s daughter?
Eeh bah gum lad, did thee work in Barnsley then lad? Did thee know a few miners, lad? It’s grim up North in’t it?
Slumming it were you, you patronising prick?
That’ll be Mr Prick to you, rudeness reflects badly on oneself you know.
Reply to 459.
I was born in the North.
It’s well known for kind, friendly, decent and well mannered people.
Wherever you come from clearly isn’t.
459 – you are the patronising prick. There are good and bad folks all over the country.
Cherie, Moley, and Rick the Roman are clearly the same person: an uptight, anally-retentive, lower-middle class, curtain-twitching, closet-homo, of a mummy’s boy.
Go and make yourself a nice cup of tea, dear, and get on with your crocheting.
You big fairy!
Moley and Rick the Roman are clearly as thick as pigshit.
Standards are really slipping around here.
459 – if you’re going to try and do ‘fake Northern ee bah gum’, at least get it right.
It can’t be ‘Did thee’, because ‘thee’ is accusative (used for the direct or indirect object of the sentence, as in ‘I’ll see thee’, ‘I’ll tell thee’, etc).
The subject of the sentence, ie the person who did the thing, is ‘thou’ (often pronounced ‘tha’), as in “Didst tha see…” or “Hast tha got…”.
Seest tha?
Are you by any chance American?
“Cherie, Moley, and Rick the Roman are clearly the same person: an uptight, anally-retentive, lower-middle class, curtain-twitching, closet-homo, of a mummy’s boy.”
Bravo, snobbery and homophobia in one sentence – you really are doing a sterling job of putting yourself across in the most unpalatable of ways and proving everyone disagreeing with you as being 100% correct on their view relating to manners. Is that really the best retort you can come up with?
It’s got nothing to do with a person’s background or lineage and everything to do with the fact that treating your fellow human beings with a bit of plain decency being a good way to live life – the fact that you can’t grasp such a simple concept suggests you are a long way past the point of being of any use.
*is* a good way to live even.
Anon #509
Bless You.
Not sure that I know Rick or Moley, but they sure write far better than I could ever hope to do.
I’m honoured, thank you, Sir.
Book not selling well Derek?
Snotsicle makes a valid point- as do most-about the ghastly Mrs Porno Smith.
I well remember the great decency in which Michael Portillo accepted his devastating defeat, very much along the lines of Jeremy Thorpe in North Devon in the 1979 results.
This lot are so lacking in common decency and good manners that you can expect lies, lies and rumours.
What the tories failed to do, and must not this next time, is ensure that they remember that this is a war between old fashioned socialism (wrapped in nice Tony blair Smiling wrapping paper) or, as I prefer, a communistic view against free markets and less central control. They must never forget that as this crowd of malcontents will change their spots again in an attempt to con the British people.
And the British People should remember these times. Perhaps when the conservatives bring back History into our schools they should insist on the failures of three labour governments to have prominence so that future generations will not be seduced by the likes of Porno Smith and co!
Has anyone found any photographs of Brown with his children? at the Beach? at the Theatre? at the Zoo? anywhere???
Good points, well made.
When education is reviewed, perhaps we can also teach some basic Economics to our children which ought to help bang the last few nails into the collective coffins of the ZaNuLabour experiment.
Education, Education, Education indeed… where they currently champion Ignorance, Ignorance, Ignorance in an attempt to keep the dependents in our society both poor and reliant upon their present party-of-choice.
Tories will not make you poor, but ZaNu will certainly keep you poor.
435 No Chip.
‘Tories will not make you poor, but ZaNu will certainly keep you poor’.
The very words given to me in the early 70’s by my father (factory worker), when I became eligable to vote. Labour or Za Nu.
Need to rid the country of the nutters in NUTS first, card-carrying marxist scum indoctrinating the next generation on the orders of old Josef himself.
No return to proper education and proper syllabi will be possible until the crowd ruining schools and universities (not to mention former technical colleges) are cleansed.
In my history lesson I got taught that the great depression ended because of state spending.
I recently worked out what I was taught was 100% wrong.
Economic “education” will end up being left wing indoctrination.
Get Government out of Schools.
Anonymous at 11.39 you have shown how right we all are about you and your ilk.
One should never wish ill of anyone. But, in your case, I hope you catch the Mexican Swine Flu and turn into the sow that you obviously are! and then drown in a pit of pig s..t!!!
Live chat the Daily Politics now (midday) The Daily Politics.
The Latest entry in Mandy’s Diary (April 4th) is up and coming soon to The Daily Politics, Debbie, PA to Mr Scewtape.
Hey Guido, latest Private Eye is really out for ya ;) Think they’re feeling a bit scared about you taking their territory!
There’s a WHIFF OF LAVENDER about Brown’s marriage.
More than just a whiff, dear!
name a post war world leader with ‘presence’ who is/was respected and trusted.
Never mind a Scottish one.
Alan Johnson may become a post war Postie leader, and his team will certainly be delivering “presents” over the Chrismas period.
(Unless they are on strike of course)
Taxi for Cherie the Wide Mouth Frog
FTSE 100 up Again !.
What’s the story here – economic figures are all looking stable at best ?
Oh, I suspect the markets have woken up to the imminent end of McBruin and ZanuLabour.
One just can’t buck those markets, can one ?
Dead cat bounce.
There will of course be a real sustained period of not so shit news after Mcmental has gone – but in reality we are stuck with the crappy cards Labour has yet again left us to play.
Labour Governments – its like leaving your 15 year olds in charge of the house for the night for the first time – you expect some mess & minor damage, but what you don’t rightly expect is that when you get home you discover they have sold the house, maxed out your credit cards & are fleecing everyone in your email address book for bogus loans.
Sorry Guido, Callaghan was a hoon.
The markets look far ahead and factor in the news accordingly.They have factored in that there will be a change of government in not less than12 months time and are acting accordingly.
Harrah, Harrah, Harrah !
The stock market is most likely up in expectation of inflation, and windfall government waste = easy profits.
Good for them, not for us.
The important measure to watch is the YEILD on the shares rising.
perhaps the tories could put forward their CONsiderate principles in the election campaigns.
Con for conservative, Con for considerate.
Police, the new career choice for stealing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/8033442.stm
Fagin Brown has taught them well.
Good lord, how did we come to this!
Pop Larkin would do his nut!
Hoisted by a lumpy mattress.
This CANnot be right…………….. can it?????????
Why do you ask me?
But no, it is not right. It is corruption gone mad.
And offshore accounts are next…
New recruiting slogan:
‘Join the police – crime is our business.’
Well worth a read.
Quite hilarious.
(A man who reported a burglary to the police was unable to account for a huge wad of cash which they seized).
“A legitimate source was not found and the cash was subsequently forfeited.
“Specific criminal conduct need not be proved.
“It is enough to show that the cash is probably related to one of a number of kinds of activity, any one of which would have been unlawful, for example, cheating the revenue, trading in counterfeit goods, drug supply or falsely claiming state benefits.”
“The public can really help us by passing on any information about people who may be making a living off ill-gotten gains.
“Generally, these people are clearly seen to spend more than their apparent disposable income. This can include owning properties, expensive cars or having a social lifestyle beyond their means.”
Owning properties, expensive cars and having a lifestyle beyond their means?
Who can the police possibly be thinking of?
“It is enough to show that the cash is probably related to one of a number of kinds of activity, any one of which would have been unlawful, for example, cheating the revenue, trading in counterfeit goods, drug supply or falsely claiming state benefits.”
That sounds remarkably like he’s suggesting that the concept of “balance of probability” applies to a criminal investigation, rather than just civil matters. In this instance it should surely be “beyond reasonable doubt”. Or to put it another way, this dickhead of a copper has basically just said that the owner of the money is guilty until proven innocent.
Officer I wish to report Uddin of this parish. A scrounging thief if ever there were one.
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher.
Replying to 461 that is!
Reagan was a great President who put “presidential” back into the office after the likes of Carter and Nixon debased the institution. At the time, Margaret Thatcher was very much admired in the USA, and not only for her answer to the Falklands.
The qualities of both are much missed today on both sides of the Atlantic.
Yank in the UK – Sir – I could not agree more
Indeed they are sir and I hope you feel amongst friends
In times past there was another G Brown who tried to undermine a popular Labour leader. Harold Wilson saved the country from George Brown (who would have been an unmitigated disaster) but left us with Sunny Jim, who while honourable was no bloody good!
Callaghan was hoist by his own petard (excuse spelling). The Unions were his friends and his political power base. The Winter of Discontent which finished him can be traced back to his resistance against In Place of Strife 10 years earlier.
Why is history repeating itself with Labour? Who is the 1972 version of Tony Benn (1972 becuase that was just before he radicalised himself)
I do miss loonybins. There just so little comedy on telly these days.
Benn’s dad made a pile of money out of dodgy wartime contracts.He then bought himself a Viscountcy and sent young Anthony (as he then was) to Public school.Anthony joined the Labour Party much like Blair did; it could equally have been the Conservatives but they would have seen through him more quickly.He decided to reinvent himself; became “Tony” Benn, renounced the title, held office under Wilson and Callaghan and made his pitch for the leadership on a dotty far left platform, somewhat at odds with his ministerial track record, having reinvented himself again.Like Tone, his ambition was to get the top job and that was all that mattered
One is reminded of the opportunistic party-hopping of Oswald Mosely, whose sound misjudgments lead him out onto a wing even less mainstream than Anthony Wedgwood Benn’s.
Don’t forget that “young Anthony”(pre-Tony days this) also had to renounce his father’s Viscountcy as well and morph from The Rt Honourable Anthony Wedgwood -Benn, Viscount Stansgate to plain “Tony Benn” when he thought that he might possibly have a chance to be Labour Leader but then again Sir Alec Douglas-Home did the same by renouncing his title of Earl Home to run against Quentin Hogg previously Viscount Hailsham for leadership of the Conservative Party around the same time of course the difference between Benn and the latter was that they assumed life peerages as Bron Home and Baron Hailsham whereas at least Benn has maintained his principles even to the extent of refusing a peerage when he retired as MP- so hats off to him – he still talks a complete load of bollocks though!!!!
George Brown was a drunken old lecher who was in a world of his own;Wilson gave him his own “Department of Economic Affairs” to play with, much to the irritation of Callaghan, who was Chancellor.Brown could not have undermined the dodgiest hole in Dodgyholeville.This buffoon was even Foreign Secretary for a while.Sound familiar? cf Margaret Beckitt and 2ds Milliband
Anonymous 505,you are right except for one detail;Benn was never offered a life peerage.It may well be however that he does actually believe his own insane drivelling (should that be dribbling?) but we will never know.
Ah, George Brown:never knowingly sober.
Might have made for a pretty good Prime Minister.
Would have been a very interesting experience anyway
It would have been a bumpy ride certainly!
Nick ‘Tonails’ Robinson is advertising some odds sites liking to his blog
“The BBC political editor Nick Robinson believes that Balls speech reveals a tension within Number 10 and the government”
Blog: Whipped Senseless
http://whippedsenseless.co.uk/
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The Training of O
Real female slave training! The ultimate in surrender
Harpic’s Socialism in one clause.
I will have no more of this disrespectful behaviour towards the woman who claims to be my wife.
My ex Friend Peter knows where you all live
On the one hand Gordon Brown may indeed be a psychopathic brown hatter on the other he pays my wages.
A thoroughly decent man with a firm moral compass that I like to suck at least three times a week.
Nick Robinson
Going
Down on Gordon street
Nick
It is in times like these where we all need to pull together
Can you get round to Downing street by 3PM?
Peter and I fancy a monks circle wank
Cheers
Gordon
[...] the sadness and sorrow of people, at what has been done by the Enemy Class. Look up in particular, Blake’s7, and caesars wife, also Alan Barnes, and the replies to these people, who I believe are honest, and [...]
The quarter million pound protection racket!!
http://subrosa-blonde.blogspot.com/
Oi! You circle wanking monks above there – I have an empty flat in Maidstone in case you get bored in Downing St.
Officer arrest that Dame masqerading as a Lady.
Nice to hear someone speaking up for Jim.
Mildly OT and apropos of nothing found this hilarious quote, apparently from Ms Macaulay:
“the only actor who could credibly portray Gordon is George Clooney”
George Formby, I think she meant.
Fuck off you Tuscan wanker!
You know that I have based my whole career on being a George Formby look alike/sound alike.
Its a shame that both Frankie Howard and Charles Hawtrey are dead , they could have played him to a tee.
You on the other hand would have been played by Sid James.
Surely George Looney?
BTW Nice link to Britney tampon vid
http://www.javno.tv/en/index.php?id=17564o8e200fc77
Are you sure that she didnt have a mouse in her pants?
George Formby was a talented musician, an accomplished actor, and a charming and educated human being, who regrettably insisted on talking in a grating-to-the-Southern-ear Lancashire accent. I’m afraid you’ll have to do more than just emulate his screeching falsetto next time we meet for me to be impressed, Mr. Beast.
That said, I agree with you re Frankie Howerd, though as a personality Gordon comes across more like that charisma-bypass Verity loon (from Mexico I think, god knows why), who used to infest Samizdata a while back.
I absolutely recommend Guido’s link to “50 ways to lose your leader”. (Labour Home.)
We have clearly entered the realms of total farce when Labour Home is lampooning Brown, The Telegraph is supporting him, and to cap it all, the BBC are advertising on Labour Home and therefore providing sponsorship.
And Sky News have just dumped him to the red button in favour of Joanna Lumley
Brown = toast
Dream team = Alan Johnson and Harriet Harman
Post June elections Brown is finished
Dream Team for whom, might I ask? Not for anyone I know. Unless you mean they are a DT for a Conservative election win of historic proportions?
Not at all surprised by the BBC. As one of the last nationalised industries BBC Pravda will not rest until they control all news management within their long dreamed of Marxist One Party State.
Yes – it is a bit like a seaman’s shanty:
Set up some pyres, Byers
Protect your balls, Balls
We need something to pee on, Sion
Let’s watch them Byrne.
Remember Gary Elsby, Stoke, the Labour troll who used to post on here and was also beaten by the B NP in a Stoke council election.
Well our old friend Gary is now posting furiously on http://www.politicalbetting.com pretending he is a farmer from South Cheshire called Tim.
How pathetic is that?
let’s harrass the hoon
You ‘aving a laff, ain’t yah son. Ain’t yah?
Maybe you are just trying to show some balance Guido? Or did you spend too much time at the Dog & Duck and Magpie & Stump over the Bank Holiday?
I’m sure he’s just testing…
I managed a skin-full of Bermondsey Bollock Buster at The Blarney Stoned. You need a decent copper around to ensure a successful lock-in, dotcha know? Pubs only smell right when they’ve got a fug of dope smoke in them. Over.
Now, now son. You’ve undergone far too much of that diversity training.
And I like to be called Guv by the lesser grunts.
Prescotts loyalty lasted all of 2 minutes, classic picture.
With friends like these… John Prescott jokes that Brown ‘has the worst bloody smile in the world’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1177540/With-friends-like–Prescott-jokes-Brown-worst-bloody-smile-world.html
He has spent most of the weekend loyally backing Gordon Brown to the hilt, telling critics of the Prime Minister to ’stop complaining and start campaigning.’
But no one puts their foot in it quite like John Prescott.
Describing Mr Brown’s widely derided recent YouTube appearance, Prescott undid all his good work by saying that the PM has ‘the worst bloody smile in the world.’
Campaigning ahead of European elections in York, Prescott then proceeded to scrunch up his face in a frankly alarming impression of his boss.
Another scotch on the rocks please, steward.
that picture is like a cats ass. Except the cats ass is probably more attractive.
prescott could gurn for Britain, and frequently does
Two little words to GobbledyGook in the presence of his wife are guaranteed to banish his smile too: Tracy Temple.
That face is full of Botox. The one on the right, obviously.
Prescott looks like Predator when he takes his hat off in that Mail pic.
Spot on, TT. Alert Arnie!!!
What struck me most about the BBC rerun of the 79 election result was the general atmosphere in the BBC studio compared to the 97 election result atmosphere, and it showed the underlying BBC pro-labour bias very well.
In 79, when the tories kicked out a discredited/bankrupt labour government, the general atmosphere in the BBC studio seemed to be funereal, mourning the loss of a great party/government which had been kicked out by an electorate who didn’t know what they’d just voted for, and warning that the new tory government was about to imminently destroy the country.
In 97, when labour kicked out a discredited (but not bankrupt) tory government, the general atmosphere in the BBC studio seemed to be jubilant to the point of journalists openly crying with happiness, celebrating the fact that the electorate had deliberately ousted a corrupt government, and saying that the new labour government was going to fix all our problems with a magic wand overnight and that we’d end up with a utopia by the time of the subsequent election.
It’ll be interesting to see what the atmosphere is in the BBC studio in 2010; I’m guessing that it’ll be exactly the same as 79; they’ll mourn the loss of a great government and tell everyone that we’ve just voted for a bunch of tossers who’ll make things much worse.
I obviously don’t agree with the BBC line, but the 79 coverage compared to the 97 coverage was incredibly illustrative of what complete bastards the BBC are.
In 79, despite the country being bankrupt, having constant strikes, no electricity, exorbitant taxes, and a killed off private sector, the BBC were still just saying that the economic problems were just a minor blip and not the government’s fault and that any new government wouldn’t have done any better.
The BBC coverage of the 2010 election will possibly seal the BBC’s future; I think Cameron will be watching it very closely, and if it’s funereal and full of shit like in 79 then he’ll bin the license fee, but if it’s balanced he might just give them a second chance.
Ah, the good old BBC, I for one remember remember it fondly.
If Cameron doesn’t bin the TV license then he’ll be shot from both sides.
He’d be mad to keep it, it’s an easy 3 billion tax cut.
If he doesn’t, we will give him a kicking
Labour peer who ‘claimed £100,000 on empty flat’ is a social housing tenant
Baroness Uddin in big deep kaka. Evening standard nails the thieving cow.
The Labour peer accused of claiming £100,000 in parliamentary allowances on a vacant flat is a social housing tenant, it has been revealed.
Baroness Uddin, Britain’s first female Muslim peer, faces a possible police investigation for fraud over allegations she claimed the money by saying the flat was her ‘main home’.
Five neighbours have said that bedrooms in the property in Maidstone, Kent, were unfurnished and they had never seen anyone living there since it was bought in 2005.
The Baroness’s main home, where she is registered to vote and where she has been registered as a company director, is a housing association property, the Evening Standard reported today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1177542/Labour-peer-claimed-100-000-flat-social-housing-tenant.html
But THERE is a doormat outside the front door now
I mean she’s in social housing, thats beyond taking the piss now really.
what’s sarah brown doing there?
I see bugger all on this in DT today. Unbelievable
yes I saw the riddle article. made me throw up in my cornflakes
Swallow and Summer, brought to mind?
yes thought of you whilst reading it
If number 10 did not release it the Daily Labourgraph will not print it. Simple
The taxpayer’s teat is for me and my kind. Now get off , or I’ll have you done for racism.
Officer arrest that cow and her udder.
Can we have sharia law just for her, out there in the wastes of the Arabian desert they cut off the hands of thieves I understand.
haha the best comment ever in the ES.
it’s ironic that one of the few speeches that the noble Baroness made in the House of Lords concerned the lack of social housing in the area where she and her family occupy social housing. This is what she said: “My Lords, does my noble friend accept that our policy on homeless families impacts greatly on those who are waiting on the list? Is she aware that about 25,000 families are on the waiting list in east London?” The hypocrisy is stunning!
- Elisabeth Stevens, london, uk
Has she been arrested yet?
nell you do know i wasn’t talking bout you yesterday don’t you?! I meant that troll was igmnoring me, you and Ewanme…
Hi NewGirl-no worries
I blogged about this earlier, here: Stunning Hypocrisy – its almost beyond belief.
Surely — surely — this is the winner for 2009? No-one is going to be able to be greedier, more hypocritical and just plain loathsome than this woman, are they?
The papers have been saying some MP’s may be “suicidal” when their expenses are published. Tell you what, if they’ve done anything near as sordid as this, I’ll be happy to hand them the rope myself.
Can we make a citizens arrest – them Met coppers is scared witless of Tub’oLard Ahmed’s 1,000,000 Angry Moslem brigade.
Uddin is in a large field of troughers
Time for a knock on the door and some collar feeling.
I’m sure Dave must be having nightmares trying to chose his next questions for PMQs. Perhaps we could give him a few suggestions
HERE
PM – how many of your cabinet have signed the petition for you to ‘just go’?
And how many have voted for you to stay.
And the BBC haven’t reported on this stroy ONCE. If it were a non muzzie or a Tory they’d be all over it.
Remember Caroline Spelman?
Callaghan was a jobsworth and Labour are a bunch of hoons but one of the most hilarious episodes in recent history was the attempt at the 2003 party conference of Iain Duncan Smith to reinvent himself as a noisy man.
Before his grand entrance some spin doctor whispered in his ear that he had to remember he was a noisy man, put his hand between his shoulder blades and thrust him roughly on to the stage. IDS stood frozen in the arclamps like a rabbit for a few seconds before shouting and screaming at the top of his voice and waving his arms around like a windmill.
The cameras panned over the stunned blue-rinse brigade staring with heads cocked and mouths agape. Two weeks later the party pulled the rope and IDS disappeared through a trapdoor into the dustbin of history, still waving his arms around.
I’d forgotten about IDS altogether!
Chuckling at the thought of Ian and Duncan Smith trying to be noisy men.
The terrible irony is that he would probably be a better Prime Minister then David Cameron who I am far from convinced is going to be up to the very difficult job ahead. Cameron is good looking and slick but completely vicious, lacking in conviction and gives the impression of having little idea what he’s going to do when elected.
Thirded.
utterly disagree. for the record.
I am gambling on DC waiting until he sees the whites of their eyes
still waiting on some fresh new “core business” material…been some weeks now since exclusive news from your pen Guido…. I smell complacency. Chop chop
These things take time to mature.
It’s also possibly a legal situation has developed, one where certain people might be before the beak and thus Guido must keep his powder dry for the prosecuting counsel
think we’ve been spoilt of late….there’s been so much fun to be had…its been like taking candy off babies Expect a major scandal every day now!
Andrew Gilligan (remember him?) has a good article in today’s Standard.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23685322-details/Well-off+Labour+peer+is+a+social+housing+tenant/article.do
Baroness Uddin’s three-bedroom house, built in the early Nineties, is in a quiet street in Wapping. A plaque on the side of a neighbouring property makes clear that both it and Lady Uddin’s house belong to Spitalfields Housing Association.
The association received a public subsidy of £37.8million last year. The average rent for its properties is £104 a week, a sixth of the market rate.
its all coming out
Because she claims her main residence is outside London, Lady Uddin is also entitled to collect up to £174 every day she attends the Lords for the cost of accommodation in the capital. The amount is paid to peers without the need to produce receipts and many claim the maximum every day they attend.
Baroness Uddin claimed a total of £29,675 for accommodation in 2007/8, a time when the maximum daily accommodation claim was £165 a day. Her bill represents a claim at the maximum possible rate for 179 days, more days than the Lords actually sat that year.
It is not clear what rent Baroness Uddin pays on her Wapping property. It is possible that she pays a full market rent to the housing association but since the Lords requires no receipts it is also possible that she pays, or has paid, the normal subsidised rent and still claims the full £174 daily allowance.
“Whatever rent Lady Uddin pays, she is depriving a low-income family of a home which was built for the needy at public expense,” said Mr Golds. “She has a great deal of explaining to do.”
http://www.spitalfieldsha.co.uk/staff_structure.html
Two Uddins on the staff and one on the board, might as well keep it in the family.
though I reckon Guido’s got a hangover today
O/d’d on dorritos!
Madam- we are a snoozepaper, not a newspaper and that’s how we like it. Have you read our hilarious spoof today, penned by our resident troll Mary Riddle? Who says April Fool’s day only falls once a year? Come and join in the fun at http://www.telegraph.co.uk, please.
‘Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said coming to the UK should be a privilege. ‘ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8033060.stm
Leaving it would be an even bigger privilege Ms. Second Home Secretary & Minister for Porn.
Excellent one viewed recently on this blogg. Class:
Home Secretary
Two Home Secretary
Two Home Movies Secretary
Out of the corner of my eye, for the last one I read “Michael Winner”!
…and bathplugs, she got a promotion.
talking about the post office, found this on the Guardian -
“The Labour party MUST keep the post office in operation, if not they will never get the 72 million postal votes that will win it the next election.” (fentonchem)
Francis Maude in the Observer over his dalliance with packaging garbage mortgages and ‘debt consolidation’.
Observer got it from Guido!
Sub-prime greaseball, caught out, loses FSA registration.
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
oh so the Labour troughs all clean as a whistle are they? What you got to say about the fine Baroness?
In a newspaper report this morning, they are saying, of the fine baroness, that she claims £174 per day attendance in the House of Lords, and in a recent set of claims, she claimed for more days than the House sat! When are we going to hear that the police are investigating?
We only investigate innocent members of the public, madam. Over.
he is a well known grease ball and slimey spiv and should be removed from the Opposition Fron Bench.
Regarding allowances see Guido on Francis Maude who is using the expense allowance given to MPs for second homes to pay for a £345000 flat just 70 yards from a house he owns in London.
Is NewGirl an ironic comment on Old Bat?
is master baiter an ironic comment on sad bastard
Don’t be alarmed everyone.
There are still Dollybots in the system running down their batteries.
Their connection with the collective has been severed & they drift aimlessly from blog to blog trying to make sense of the world now they have no overlord to send them daily propaganda to spout.
Their OT inconsistent drivel is a sign that their core programming is failing.
Nothing to see or feed here, move along to the General Electiojn please.
In fact it’s not complicated:
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
It’s a bit rich for “The Inquisition” to accuse the Tories of financial misconduct, when the entire Labour party is up to their necks in shit too….
As usual Labour show their true “working class” credentials when they get into power – feather their nest as much as possible, while hypocritically crowing on about helping “hard-working families” (shame I’m single).
Francis Maude is a spiv.
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
Financial Meltdown = Labour mal-regulation.
If he has done something wrong and used our money then lets hang him,if he’s done something wrong and used his own money then put him in court, but then he’s not a Liebour supporter/mp or cabinet member so he won’t be able to deny he’s done nothing wrong.
Braindead/Lies/Corruption/Financial misconduct= Liebour
Proof positive the Conservaitves are up to the hilt involved in the financial mess and are one and the same as the banksters who have caused the financial meltdown.
Francis Maude made toxic securities by packaging up garbage sub-prime self certified mortgages and secured ‘debt consolidation’ loans.
It’s only limp brains like you that can’t see it.
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
Maude was using his own money.
Financial Misconduct with Public Money = Labour.
You’re about as thick as they come if you think he was using his own money.
The Prestbury operation and others like it are a central cause of the financial meltdown and the current mega recession.
Francis Maude packaged up garbage mortgages in to ‘asset backed’ securities, those toxic securities are now clogging up bank balance sheets and seized up the financial system.
To get the financial system going again the TAXPAYER is BAILING OUT the BANKS….TAXPAYER, oooooooH!
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
Would that be bankers like Gordon’s former best friend, whom he had knighted,Sir Fred Goodwin?
The second “home” we all bought Francis Maude is yards from his first.
The specimen known as ‘The Inquisition’. like Dracula and Bernadotte before them, is a Hooon.
Inki.
Every time you surface your arguments seem predicated on the belief that generally posters are quite happy with Tory sleaze but averse to Labour sleaze. I don’t see anyone defending Francis Maude. Speaking for myself if that is true then he deserves all the opprobrium he gets, and more.
Financial misconduct = Almost anybody who can get away with it due to the crap regulations instituted by the Government.
Francis Maude’s sub-prime packaging Chairmanship of Prestbury, a sleazy mortgage fraud outfit.
As crooked as they come.
Financial misconduct = Conservatives.
I doubt anyone on here would defend Francis Maude if he has done anything wrong.On a personal level, I have always thought him a charm-free area but, unlike Liebour trolls, we are non-partisan
The Inquisition
If we are on the subject of taking what are basically unsaleable toxic components and packing them up in such a way to mislead people that they are being offered something that has some value:
NuLiebor = Possibly the greatest example of mis-selling in living memory
still not answered the question though
Love, You know you’re not fooling anyone?
about what, troll? And don’t call me “love”.
All right love.
just can’t answer the question can you? Ever.
I don’t remember Callaghan, aka Gentleman Jim, being the harmless gent you make him out to be. Apart from the unexplained riches leading to the purchase of a farm and staying on beyond his sell-by-date, one of his greatest abuses of power was installing his son-in-law – a journalist with no connection to diplomacy or the Foreign Office – in the plum job of British Ambassador to the USA.
Rawnsley in the Observer, despite thinking Gordon was “commanding” and “shone” at the G20, has this great line:
“The prime minister’s lunatic rictus was more disturbing than Jack Nicholson in The Shining”
“This didn’t work when he met the other main party leaders in the prime minister’s cavernous room behind the speaker’s chair. David Cameron and Nick Clegg did not respond positively to an attempt to bludgeon them into submission. That meeting turned very acrimonious. It finally broke up after the Lib Dem leader said that his time would be better spent at home reading a bedtime story to his children.”
Good old Cleggy.
I’m seriously thinking of voting LibDem next time on the basis that they are shite. That makes them better than the tories who are very shite, and labour who are very, very, very shite indeed.
Actually this says it all.
BBC News website wins two Webbys
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8033808.stm
Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, said the win was “fantastic”.
“It’s a tribute to the hard work, ingenuity and talent of the editorial, technical, design and support teams who work on the BBC News website, and to the commitment and excellence of the BBC’s journalists everywhere,” he said.
Anti-social behaviour is a widespread problem, which can severely disrupt communities and if left unchecked can lead to neighbourhood decline. As a result, Spitalfields Housing Association is committed to tackling anti-social behaviour promptly to ensure that our residents can enjoy their homes and the surrounding environment fully. Our focus is hinged on promoting prevention in partnership with our tenants, combating racial harassment, adopting a multi-agency approach, enforcing tenancy obligations and taking legal action to evict persistent perpetrators.
WHAT ARE THE TENANCY OBLIGATIONS…..I WONDER
The benefits of a multi agency approach are that it’s always someone else’s fault, it creates employment, and you get to work with dingbats like yourself.
I suspect that it is one of their rules that they will not provide housing to someone who owns their own property elsewhere – but with 2 Uddins working for them and another on the board chances are this is one of those occasions where they will not enforce the rule.
Not just the two Udders on the housing board, the entire performance of the Rotten Borough of Towering Hamlets during the decade of Liebore-in-power, needs close examination.
Udder and her kinsmen have run the fiefdom like a lawless ‘Stani tribal region with benefits paid by we all know whom. Subsidised social housing dweller who drives a 60 000 quid Beamer? Hmmm, Inspector Knacker this way if you please.
Before we alll get carried away with Jim Callaghan’s gentlemanliness,remember the damage he caused.
In 1968,Wilson and Barbara Castle introduced a White Paper proposing legislation for reforming trade unions.Callaghan was Home Secretary at the time. He went very quiet on the subject,and then cemented his relations with the unions,by opposing The Whiite Paper in Cabinet,and securing a huge watering down of its legislative proposals. He papers over this in his otherwise excellent autobiography–there is a reference of a few lines without any explanation for his stance. However ,this stance endeared him to the unions,and gave him a future power base within the Labour Party,and this was crucial eight years later when he stood for the leadership– another instance of leader putting himself or his party before the interests of the State—something our beloved leader does now with his wilful refusal to give us any suggestions of how the books are to be balanced. Those of us who run businesses know that if you are losing money,you have to increase your revenues or cut your costs—or both. The Government know what it has to do, but ducks the problem for a year—UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION. UGH
More ammo for the ‘How Bonkers is Brown’ meme (in case you missed it):
Rachel Sylvester – The Times
Cabinet ministers and their aides have a new phrase to describe Gordon Brown’s outbursts – the Prime Minister is said to give colleagues the “hairdryer treatment”, an in-your-face rant similar to those deployed by Sir Alex Ferguson in the Manchester United dressing room.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article6222055.ece
yeuch, bet he spits when he rants
no brainer – he spits when he talks.
Ugh !
Can you imagine the reek from that warm breath ?
How disgusting.
This man can’t even dress himself correctly eg. tighten his tie or take his trouser leg out of his sock, so I’m convinced he won’t take much, if any, on his personal hygiene.
Which makes me remember a work colleague who had particularly bad breath.
When one of my more outspoken colleagues remarked “Jim, please stand back a bit, your breath is bowfin”, Jim retorted “Sorry, I apologise for my halitosis” to which my colleague reached into his pocket and produced half a packet of mints, handed them to Jim and remarked “Eat some of these and THEN you will have halitosis !”.
When someone does similar to McMental, we’ll know its all over.
Yob within his rights to refuse to wear distinctive clothing
The judge said the rule to wear the vest was introduced three months after the defendant signed his agreement.
….Beales was originally given a suspended sentence with an unpaid work requirement for possessing a knuckleduster, a flick knife and drinking excess alcohol in September last year, the court heard.
He said at an earlier hearing that the jacket would cause him humiliation and embarrassment, and he should not be forced to wear it….
If it was up to me he could sweep the streets stark bollock naked.
He should just be thrashed within an inch of his life by a seargent major type and a birch. No need for vests here,
Where is Spitting Image mkII?
Oh, I forgot they were all card carrying NULAB clones, I seem to remember the phrase “Job done” being used by the Spitting Image Team when TB came in on the NULAB landslide. Pity, I’d love to have seen this shower given the same treatment.
already caricatures though, aren’t they?
I mean, you couldn’t improve on Hazel Blears could you? Couldn’t create a perkier, gingerer, smugger, more coiffured chipmunk if you tried? And have you seen that pic of Prezza “smiling” in link above? Hard to believe its human really.
No, I have to agree with you there, I would have sued the plastic surgeon if that had happened to me. It just can’t be natural.
in fact, the more I think about it, prezza probably IS a puppet. Explains an awful lot about his syntax.
Hang on.
Wasn’t that the government that continually lied and deceived everybody about the real state of public finances?
Margaret Thatcher introduced Select Committees because of the scale of the deceit when she finally saw the books.
You must be very charitable to find anything good to say about Sunny Jim.
Has Brown given Uddin his unqualified support yet?
Have the BBC mentioned this story at all?
not a sausage
What, and risk the racist card ?
sorry. not a pork sausage.
It’s all gone a bit quiet about this. Not a f*cking peep on the BBC
I blogged about this earlier here: Stunning Hypocrisy – don’t think Nick Robinson reads my blog though….
I don’t think he reads his own Blog either…..actually, no-one reaaly reads it because it’s usually on some eccentric topic that no-one is ineterested in.
May be he’s waiting for one of Brown’s people to call and give him the correct line to take?
On the Uddin scandal, the House of Lords expesnes regime obvioulsy needs some tightening up. I wonder if we could ask the PM to put forward some proposals, perhaps using the medium of YouTube once more?
Just a reminder from Uddin’s own website..
“About Baroness Uddin
My Backyard
I have a great sense of belonging to the East End which has been my home for over thirty years. This historical part of London can always acclaim the highest moral ground for embracing the richness of our cultural, social and religious diversity. The tenacity of our people continue to amaze me every day, the Champion of yesteryears have moved on to acquire social and political status leaving grand legacies which has been taken on and continued by the successful Bangladeshi communities in the true honour bound tradition of the east enders.
Tower Hamlets has not only been my home, it is where my professional and political career has taken shape, where my children have grown up, and also where I served as a local councillor for 8 years. ”
No mention of Maidstone then?
Thoughtful notes on a lot of posts today B7 onwards.
In 74 in London we had the lights off as coal was being saved for power due to the miner’s out again. In 78/79, we had the unburied, the streets full of black bags and garbage/rats all over the place. The steel strikes, the endless Red Robbo and Ford walk outs, Post Boxes sealed, and NUPE bleating. Remember ASLEF and no trains? SOGAT and no papers? GMB and no construction? A country in meltdown.
It was the time of beer and sandwiches at No10 with Callaghan, Scanlon, Jones, Gormley and McGachy. NUPE encouraging T&GW flying pickets at the gate of my hospital, where they were threatening anyone who was trying to work in the NHS for crossing the line! Liverpool with Labour councils and flats that had no toilets night soil buckets emptied into common sluices in the yard.
Callaghan told us in all candour that he couldn’t spend out of a recession, but he was reading the IMF script to the asylum inhabitants! Any decent man would have been able to see the grabbing incompetence of the TUC and the National Exec of the Labour Party.
We went down to vote for Maggie as soon as the Polling station opened. no one could believe that our country had been driven so low by Labour.
When Blair was elected, my elderly mum described him as a blarter, someone who would say anything to anyone to impress. She was so right! His side kick, Brown has done much worse than even she could have dreamt, having spent and borrowed and then spent even more.
Everything has become tainted by spin (lies) and dubious statistics, waiting lists for example are down, but the numbers of dead to pay for this are in the tens of thousands. Read MRSA, and Cl diificile for bed turnover rates. Thats nothing to be proud of! Where is the shame from Maidstone and Stafford?
Yes Callaghan was a decent sort of bloke who had lousy bed fellows, but the looters of the public purse who have been around our necks since 97 have done damage that only evisceration of the TUC and Labour party from our lives can cure.
Read through the posts;Callaghan was a lying,hypocritical, bullying,doublecrossing thug on the make
Too right he’s fallen in the water
Count Jim Moriarty and I are reputable businessmen and can make you a fortune
Correct, correct, correct. Labour never has been able to run an economy and never will. No one shoudl ever vote for them, ever again.
I heard a rumour that Prescott and his election bus were in town so I took a look outside and sure enough, there were blow flies everywhere
Steward, there’s a fly in my scotch.
And whither the bulimic Baker’s Friend? Frantically scurrying o’er cobbles, consulting “Street View” in search of the establishment of comely entrepreneuse Mrs Miggins I’ll wager.
The opinion that “distance lends enchantment to the view” can reasonably said of anything from Mrs Madd’s mother to an AK47 to our past political leaders.
Guido’s assessment of him may well be accurate or not;it’s all pretty objective and it’s difficult to remember what we felt at the time.
One thing does stick out though and its this;under Callaghan,Heath Thatcher Major and even Wilson I still felt proud to be British.
I have to say with a heavy heart that I have not felt pride in us as a nation since 2000 and it is a condition that corrodes my soul
We are no longer a nation, merely a disparate group. There are too many immigrants, unaware of our history and culture and often, actively hostile to us and our way of life. Any protest by us brings accusations of racism. The reality is that with birth rates much higher than the native population and with many of them having low skills, there will be an increasing demand for support from social services, an increased demand for housing and an increase of the numbers who follow islam. This is something that Christians ought to have considered before opening the floodgates to millions of immigrants. The Labour government, in its arrogance did not ask us what we wanted. They gave us what they needed, a client population, in receipt of benefits, who can be relied upon to vote Labour. They have ruined the country, socially, ruined it economically and corrupted politics to its very core. I an ashamed to call myself British. I would advise any young person to leave the UK, for ever, after gaining their qualifications. If they stay, they will be burdened for the rest of their lives with the financial deficit created by that genius, Gordon Brown, who believed his repeated bragging that he had abolished boom and bust. He was lying.
51,300. Come on people!!
!!!!! Gordon Brown ventures back onto YouTube !!!!!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6227972.ece
I think the headline should read……………
Gordon Brown commits Political Suicide – again!
You must see this, the hoon does it again:
Photographed like a snearing loon against a backdrop of a Swastika
Peering above a poster carefully cropped by the photographer to show just 1 word “Help”
Happy days
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6229529.ece
Unfortunately having been around when old `Sunny Jim’ was PM, it wasn’t my opinion that he was honourable. His political credo and path to the premiership was always based on the approach “… find out what the unions want and give it to them …”. A successful (for him) strategy but somewhat distant from honourable, and with no concern for the consequences for the British people. And given that many of the unions were in the hands of rabid communists (Scargill wasn’t the only one by any means: dockers, railway and underground workers etc.) it was an approach based on “me first, fuck you”, plus ca change. When Barbara Castle attempted to introduce legislation to curb union power (In Place Of Strife), old Sunny Jim well and truly knifed her, and her legislation, in the back. It set us back years by allowing the unions to run amuck all over the rest of us. Much of the chaos of the seventies (three day week, rolling power cuts, unburied dead etc.), and the necessary bitter medicine that Thatcher had to administer in the eighties to pull us out of it, can be laid right at his door (and that of the snake-in-chief Wislon). Pity few of the Thatcher critics can’t seem to remember that, or don’t want to admit it. However he did always do it with a smile on his face … the smile on the face of the crocodile. There was a difference betwen him and Brownstain though (and the Great Bliar), he was happy to let Britain be effectively ruled by the Soviet Union through its union proxies whereas NuLab want to hand us over oven ready (fully plucked and stuffed) to the uber-rich who run the US (see http://www.policestateplanning.com/id19.htm and see if that doesn’t ring a bell or two) so they can be viewed as their faithful servants, and benefit accordingly (how did you think the Great Bliar has made so much money in so short a time?). Nope, old Sunny Jim and Brownstain were soul brothers, even if they’d have had to conduct a mutual conversation with their backs firmly against a concrete wall. If you want honourable men of that period you could look at Joe Grimond and poor old George Brown. Given the vipers nest he had to deal with in his own party, it’s no wonder he ended up as a lush (there was a joke around at the time that most politicians were idealists with few illusions. Wislon however was an illusionist without any ideals at all. Could have just as well been applied to Sunny Jim … and … and …, ad infinitum).
A useful theory on why politicians (and not just those in party politics) are the way they are can be found here ( http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/beware-the-psychopath-my-son/ ). It makes you think.
Callaghan is a seriously underrated prime minister. A good performance with public administration, an excellent record on the economy, but unfortunately ruined by the unions — and, lest we forget, his own hubris in getting a little TOO specific regarding his incomes policy. Callaghan was insistent about a five percent pay cap in 1978, and while he had brought inflation down from 26 percent to eight percent, eight is still more than five. And with a new generation of more militant union leaders taking the helm during that summer and autumn of 1978, his timing was spectacularly off too. Denis Healey has suggested that a statement limiting pay raises to the “single figures” would have been sufficient to uphold the policy without dangerously alienating the likes of Moss Evans and Terry Duffy, but Callaghan was insistent on his ace in the hole. And, as we now see, it permanently damaged Labour. No new generation of reasonably moderate people emerged to succeed Callaghan and Healey; the liberals in the party, probably the best people for the job, bolted for the SDP Liberal Alliance; the leftists made a big scene that ultimately didn’t amount to very much; and the power-mad authoritarians were left in charge with the result we see today.
Is there any hope for our country at all now? Is there a person or persons in our country that has both integrity and intelligence enough to bring in the change necessary to both reduce the size of the non-productive organisation our economy supports, whilst improving the performance of the remainder?
I am saddened each day to witness the greed, short-sightedness and utter lack of integrity those who put themselves in positions of leadership display – yet I cannot see a worthy alternative.