h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Afternoon all,

Away for a while, just read through this thread. Some very interesting and astute comments. However on a purely personal point of view his legacy for me is "Lies and Deceit [Spin}"

The man came to power of the crest of popular acclaim. Many of us wanted desperately for him to achieve the squeeky clean government that he espoused. After all, the Labour MP's had spent months leaping to their feet in The Commons to shout "sleaze" etc in the Tory years.

We wanted truth and honesty. We didn't get it. We got mendacity and spin. I wont make lists lke other ( better?)) posters, I'll just say that he really did squander the best chance any PM could have had to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. Any man who promises that much and fails, has failed.

Novo

Afternoon Novo, thought you'd got lost in the backlog.

Well it didn't take New Labour long to indicate the cut of their jib, remember Bernie Eccleston. Also the apotheosis of spin, remember Dr David Kelly.

Hi WA

No , still not lost!

It is Dr Kelly that I will never forget. I doubt we will ever know the facts ,but for me his death ( however caused), prevented us from 'knowing' the lies when we needed to.

Novo

Leaving Iraq aside, it's not that surprising that we ended up with a Labour party obsessed by presentation and perception. It didn't happen by accident. Speaking as a Labour supporter and party member at the time, albeit a very young one, we couldn't believe that Kinnock lost in 1992. I'd expected Labour to win, and I think the pollsters did too. But what they hadn't counted on was that people wouldn't admit to voting Tory.

Why did Labour lose in 1992? A number of reasons, including a disastrous rally in Sheffield that struck all the wrong notes and relentless media hostility. Remember the Sun headline about the last person leaving the country turning the lights off? Labour never got a fair deal from the print media, because virtually all of it was very right wing. How do you win an election when nearly every national newspaper will distort your message? You can't understand New Labour unless you understand why PR became so important to them.

The British left had always been poor at presentation and image, and it was something that the Tories were very, very good at. So Labour decided to get better at it. In the end, they overtook the Tories and now the Tories are trying to catch up.

Did Labour get obsessed by spin? Yes, but it's wrong (as I hope everyone now agrees) to say that it was all spin, and that nothing was achieved.

'If only Cecil Parkinson had a shred of Blunkett's honour. (Remember Parkinson?)'

Um, well that's not entirely true is it? He did sort of use his position as home secretary to push his nanny's passport didn't he? There were other less serious bits about claiming expenses, but it was hardly morally high ground.

Anyway, I'd have to adhere to the view that while the Blair government hasn't dragged politics through the dirt all by itself, it certainly hasn't given it a thorough cleaning up, it's still basically as lacking in credibility now as it was ten years for you. All we want, surely, is someone to be honest enough to say 'Look, it's a bit of a tough job this, yeah we F*cked up, but we're doing our best. SORRY'.

Probably no worse, but probably no better either.

Blunkett allegedly wrote an email with the subject line "no special treatment, just a bit quicker". And he fought tooth and nail, at cost to his own reputation, to be recognise as the father of Kimberley Fortier's child.

Compare and contrast with Cecil Parkinson: wikipedia's current entry on him has this: "He was forced to resign in October 1983 after it was revealed that his former secretary, Sara Keays, was bearing his child, Flora Keays. Subsequently, as a result of a dispute over child maintenance payments, Parkinson (with Keays' initial consent) was able to gain an injunction in 1993, forbidding the British media from making any reference to their daughter. Flora Keays suffers from learning difficulties and Asperger's Syndrome and had an operation to remove a brain tumour when she was four, which is thought to have caused her problems. This court order was the subject of some controversy, until Flora Keays reached her majority at the end of 2001, when the court order expired. Upon Flora turning 18, it was noted in the press that Parkinson had never met his child and presumably had no intention of doing so. While he had assisted with Flora's education, it was publicly pointed out that he had not ever sent her a birthday card and that her mother assumed that Flora could not ever expect to receive one."

Not really similar, I think. I know which one I think is an ill-advised man, and which one is contemptible scum.

SoRB

Yes well you're not going to get much change out of comparing anyone to Cecil Parkinson- the only man so unpopular that the mere annoucement of his appearance on next week's Question Time I saw being greeted with Panto style hissing- but that does not make Blunket's behaviour acceptable. In any event, Parkinson was immoral but did this actually impact his ability to do the job? Blunket's indiscretions directly influenced his running of his department and the cash-for-questions row, if proven, would show the same again. In that sense, then, all the shagging around by the tories (even Mellor euurghh) is not as bad as any amount of corruption in relation to actually running the country, and I don't immediately know of any accusation as severe as falsifying intelligence reports and lying to parliament to justify an invasion.

By a weird coincidence, for light relief I'm reading Boris Johnson "Have I got views for you" at the moment, which is a collection of his newspaper columns from the 90s.

One stood out.

In 1995, nobody could quite figure out how Labour membership had skyrocketed by over 100,000 in under a year. A bunch of journalists were invited to a local party soiree in Dulwich. BJ, (how apt), asked people why they were disillusioned with the Tories and joining labour. Here are the answers given:

"If I become any more Alzheimerish, I'll have to go into a care home and be forced to sell my house."

"You don't know what it's like to try and get housing"

"It's their incompetence and their inability to take their hands off things"

"Homeless beggars are something you associate with the Third World"

"I don't believe anything this government says"

Spookily familiar.

"I don't immediately know of any accusation as severe as falsifying intelligence reports and lying to parliament to justify an invasion."

Nor do I. But there's a difference. Those are *accusations*. As has been previously pointed out, with the last Tory government, there were *convictions*, plural, for lying, for corruption, and for perjury. There's a big difference between having your opponents vilify you (which, let's face it, is their actual job) and having the independent judiciary and a jury convict you of an actual crime.

SoRB

True. I guess we'll have to come to our own conclusions about the 45 minute claim. It will be interesting to see, now Tony is leaving office, whether the cash for peerages scandal will be allowed to land at someone's door. It might be reckoned that the new PM would benefit from having that case prosecuted, in order to put in behind the party and, as Tony would say, 'Move on'.
Nonetheless, as I already said, even though Labour have run for ten years on a platform of 'not as bad as the Tories', managing to compare favourable with another party, especially in areas you promised to do better and they were appalling, isn't enough. The Government wasn't 'whiter than white' nobody was ever actually sacked and people like Mandleson and Blunkett just kept coming back. A line was never drawn under the sand and the promises to whipe out sleaze and were never convincinglly fulfilled.

What I'll always remember Blair for - the Am I bovvered? sketch with Catherine Tate for Comic Relief. Could you imagaine any previous PM doing that?

Thinking about personal politics and personalities...but I think I'll start a new thread on that rather than derail this one (any more...)

"Could you imagaine any previous PM doing that?"

Harold Wilson.

SoRB

Harold Wilson, he would not make a goot PM now...

But for 'the times' he fitted.


The 'art' of being a good PM is having control of their party; HW did.


Major, he was a good PM, but had no control of his party.

'What I'll always remember Blair for - the Am I bovvered? sketch with Catherine Tate for Comic Relief. Could you imagaine any previous PM doing that?'

No (I don't remember Harold Wilson) but to be honest, even if it was funny, I thought that was Blair all over- all style and presentation.

The scary thing was just how good he performed in that sketch. The consummate actor.

That's his real legacy isn't it?

Yes.

So, of the following, who would people elect as their next PM:

1) Charles Dance
2) Ian McKellen
3) Patrick Stewart
4) Gordon Brown

Or none of the above?

Will Patrick Stewart have Worf in charge of the Home Office? If so, that could be tempting.

I think Data is desperately needed at the home office don't you?