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

As it seems to be at the very least the beginning of the end.

The only trouble for me is that this wont be the end of "Blairism", Brown was the architect of most of the "New Labour" project and the only credible challengers will be "blairites".

It has got to the stage recently that I almost would like the Tories to be in power.... If they were then:-

I can live with the Tories stabbing the working classes in the back, that is their job after all. It hurst more when it is 2my lot" doing it.

In a similar veing I wish it was the Tories privatising the health and education services by the back door.

At least when the Tories were in power I could at least hope and believe something better is possible, at the moment I dont even have that.

I really cannot see myself (a natural child of the left as it were) ever voting for "New Labour" again.

What would make me worried if I was at the head of Labour is how many people like me, who fall into labours natural constituency (labour voter for life, active trade unionist, Gaurdian reader) abhor them and cannot bear the thought of any more of this government.

deary me.....

Does every government have a shelf life?

This particular government has been especially strange IMO. Socialist in that they brought in a minimum wage and taxed us to the hilt, but extremely right-wing in its' gung-ho attitude to wars.

Back on-topic, Blair has some gall. The pressure on him to quit has been incredible, but he seems to have got away with it again.

I thought he was in trouble when he had said he wasn't resigning soon twice in the last few days (never seen a politician saying that 3 times) but today he said when (give or take) not that he wouldn't so he might be OK. I'd say Blair is gone in the next few weeks or he has until when he wants to go (well within a year probably after they do disasterously in Scotland) a bit of a side issue but I don't the English beeing impressed with Gordan Brown being PM simply because he's scottish and reckon it will harm them in the General Elections,

He said 'This week is not our (Labour's) finest hour'!

Can you trust a man who cannot see the difference between a week and an hour? What about the other 167 hours? Were they any better?

It all makes me think about Gorbatsjov, when Jeltsin wanted (and got)
the power.

I'm just speaking about the almost magical "psychology of power".

The camera shows Gorbatsjov with a white face, at the second floor of the kremlin building.
One can see, that he suddenly had become a shadow of whom he was, in the power of politics.

Exactly the same I saw today at the tele. sept. 7 2006.



Powerful greetings from Amsterdam.

What I dont seem to understand is how Blair seem entirely insulated from the fact that he has become as much of an electoral albatross as the radical left were for Labour in the 80s.

The truth is (whether the right like it or not) Blair's "policy agenda" does seem to hit a cord with the public, as demonstrated by David Cameron apeing Blairite ppolicies and being hugely popular with it. What Blair seems unable to comprehend is that post Iraq it is him personally that has lost the welectorate and credibility. Whether or not "Labour" can reagain this under Brown remains to be seen.

What has BLair been reading in his bunker and how many yes men has he surrounded himself with to be *this* delusional?

It's such a shame the way things turned out. I remember drunken conversations in a working men's club in Staffordshire on the night of the 1997 election. We'd won. After 1992 I didn't trust the polls, but this time they were right. We won spectacularly - an unforgettable night. A friend of mine - a mature student - had no time for Blair, but he explained his theory that the political climate was like an oil tanker - it didn't turn in a sixpence. He said that what we'd see is a new Labour government governing competently but cautiously, moving slowly leftwards as time went on so as not to startle the horses.

Nearly ten years on, and there have been some major achievements under Blair. Getting the T*ries out and making Labour electable again. Giving control of interest rates to the Central Bank, with government only setting targets. The National Minimum Wage - a major triumph. Devloution for Scotland, Wales, and a mayor for London. More money for schools and hospitals, reduced waiting lists, action on poverty. The UK taking a *lead* in international development, aid, and debt relief issues. Can you imagine the Tories ever having done any of these things? And on top of that, a stable and growing economy, and an end to mass unemployment. Huge achievements.

On the down side, Iraq. PFI deals. Creeping privitisation including some that even the Tories wouldn't have dared to try. A nasty authoritiarian streak threatening civil liberties. No moves towards electoral reform apart from the unfinished Lords reforms.

Blair once said that the choice is not between the Labour government of your dreams and a Labour government of reality, but between the Labour government of reality and a Conservative government. In other words, you might not like us much, but the Tories are worse. And I think that's right.

For all "Dave's" posturing, the Tories remain a fundamentally 'nasty' party, and I dread them getting back in. It's funny -when I was a young Labour enthusiast older people used to tell me rather patronisingly that "you don't remember what it was like under Labour". Now I find myself saying the same thing about the Tories. I think people have forgotten just how nasty they really are. For example, we might not like Labour for university tuition fees, but at least they have an access regulator to ensure fairness of admissions policies. The Tories would just have brought in tuition fees and left it at that. Because fundamentally the Tories are not interested in fairness and equal opportunities for all.

So I think Blair is right to go in a year or so, and I'd like to see what Brown can do to reinvigorate Labour. If he doesn't, maybe I'll join the Lib Dems whose thinking seems more and more like my own these days.

Blair has two problems, really. Iraq is one, and boredom is the other. People are just sick of him - he's been around for a long time, been very successful on the whole, but people want a change.

"If you're not a socialist when you're young, you don't have a heart.
If you're not a conservative when you're older, you don't have a brain."
Winston Churchill

Does that mean that the tin man from Wizard of Oz never voted conservative?

Given that he was a Yank, he probably never voted. Faced with the choice of conservative or even more conservative.

Actually, is there any statute that debars the brainless from voting?

(come on, with an opening delivery like that, it's just begging for a six )

Urgh, overquoted, but where is the justification?

Overquoted and quite possibly misattributed according to some of the web pages out there.

Churchill what a charmer and great sage, lets not forget as well as many great soundbites he was the guy who dropped gave the orders to drop poison gas onto the Kurds of Northern Iraq, advocated execution without trial for leading Nazis and sold out Eastern Europe to a life under Stalin.

This governments use of business management techniques to run the country has been very harmful.

Yes the minimum wage, surestart and cutting waiting lists look great and in some ways are great but that's not the full story.

For the rich the advantages have far outstrpped any advantages for the poor gained during labour. The changes in the NHS have caused problems in other areas of the NHS and massive job cuts. The minimum wage has increased the take home pay of millions but PFI means that in years to come more and more of the taxes from everybodys pay will be channeled into propping up failing PFI schemes while rich companies grow richer leeching money through Browns short term money saving but longterm expensive contracts.

It is becoming increasingly clear that continuos gross is a fountain of youth that Brown can never hope to find. Rather than admit this he is speeding up the Economy while appearing to be cautious and making the boks balance. In the next ten to 20 years all other things being equal our economy is likley to hit the skids.

Our only hope is that we can stay ahead of the tiger economies by controlling a comodity essential to their expansion...oil.

Maybe as Blair has often said history might look kindly on his intervention in Iraq afterall

one love

Let me just say that the comments below are not meant to be confrontational but they genuinely reflect what I feel ........

Dont vote. No, really. The last time I voted was 1979 and I have found it to be an incredibly liberating experience. Let the little boys and girls of Westminster claw each others eyes out as much as they like, just dont care about it. Nobody ever has their political views changed by talking about it, once a Tory, always a Tory, etc, etc.
Why did I take this course of action? Well, for the past 26 years I have lived in solid blue dyed in the wool Tory strongholds that have been since dinosaurs walked the earth. There simply is no chance at all whatsoever of overturning the encumbant politicos in my neck of the woods. So - once you realise that it truly doesnt matter if you vote or not, then you can look back dispassionatly and view the Westminster antics in a whole new light. You know what? They ALL seem to be either self serving, on the take, nasty, backstabbing etc etc.

If just one politician stood up and admitted "I was wrong, and I apologise whole heartedly" then I might be pursuaded to enter into the voting thing again. Until then, just let them fight and squabble by themselves, pay them no attention and just serenely get on with living your life. Am I the only one not to give a damn what they do?

"It has got to the stage recently that I almost would like the Tories to be in power.... If they were then:-

star I can live with the Tories stabbing the working classes in the back, that is their job after all. It hurst more when it is 2my lot" doing it.

star In a similar veing I wish it was the Tories privatising the health and education services by the back door.

star At least when the Tories were in power I could at least hope and believe something better is possible, at the moment I dont even have that.

I really cannot see myself (a natural child of the left as it were) ever voting for "New Labour" again."

I've recently bought a book called "Better or Worse" by Polly Toynbee and David Walker that apparently dispells most of the myths about Labour being "the same" as the Tories (largely put-about by the middle-class left). Investment in the NHS is up, poorer people are better-off etc etc. Certainly, I've noticed where I'm from that the economy is improving which is more than can be said for when I was growing-up.

Of course, Labour are not the Labour party of the 1970s - they are not a statist-socialist party. The thing is many people (including working-class people) don't want a return to that. The 1970s was a dreadful decade that lead directly to the "shock treatment" of Thatcherism. Blair is far from perfect - I don't care for his style of government and I lost much faith in his foreign policy after his shambolic treatment of the Israel-Lebanon war but I feel Labour remain the only party that are going to keep the country going in roughly the right direction. Cameron's "new torys" are a huge improvement over the party that was until recently run by the hapless Thatcherite throwback IDS but they remain a party that thinks everyone in the country has it in them to be a small shopkeeper and should be treated as such.

>>it has got to the stage recently that I almost would like the Tories to be in power<<

I'll never vote Tory, not ever, after living through the nightmare of endless opposition and powerlessness and seeing what the Tories did. And I'm certain the Tories will do and say absolutely anything to get back into power. Much as New Labour did. But they are ALWAYS preferable to the Tories. I actually reckon New Labour have done a lot of good stuff in the public services.

And as the saying goes, 'Be careful what you wish for', or in your case Ferretbadger, what you almost wish for. Have you ever thought of voting Liberal?

I never ever want to see the Tories in power. I'll definitely still be voting Labour at the next election, and for every subsequent election. Because for me the very idea of a Tory government will always fill me with absolute unambiguous horror.

"For example, we might not like Labour for university tuition fees, but at least they have an access regulator to ensure fairness of admissions policies. The Tories would just have brought in tuition fees and left it at that. Because fundamentally the Tories are not interested in fairness and equal opportunities for all."

Absolute crap - The Tories were against tuition fees from the start - Can I remind you of Mr Blair's promis ? "We will not introduce tuition fees, and will legislate to prevent them."

If you want to read some truths about this government try - "You Are Here." by Bremmner, Bird and Fortune.

As for Mr Blair's views on history - When I went to school history was something we learnt from, not something we felt would exonerate us.

As for people who say I have always voted for "X" and will always vote for "X" I think they should have their right to vote rescinded, they obviously don't have the maturity top vote.

I would like to say more, but I might find myself arrested, like John Catt - for wearing a T-shirt saying Blair and Bush are war ciminals. Or like Steve Jago, arrested for for carrying a placard quoting George Orwell in Whitehall, or Maya Evans arrested, charged and convicted for reading aloud the names of the British dead in the Iraqi war. Or Helen John and Sylvia Boyes (68 and 62) for crossing the sentry line at the US base at Menwith Hill, Or Brian Haw the man Labour would love to get rid of, who maintains a vigil outside Parliament, and of course Walter Wolfgang, Labour party member, ejected and arrested for shouting "Nonsense", or whoever it was arrested last week for handing out anti-gay propaganda.

The Tories opposition to tuition fees was mere opportunism, trying to force a defeat for the government, not a principled objection. Of course, Labour did similar things in opposition.

Surprise, surprise....current Tory policy is to keep tuition fees...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4594836.stm

and to scrap the Office of Fair Access....
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=118692

So not "absolute crap", but absolutely true.

Your two quotes contradict each other.

The one from Monday says top up fees will continue - This is a new change in policy, and doesn't alter the fact that Tories voted against top-up fees - which Labour introduced after promising they wouldn't !

The one from January 2005 says - "Removing the Office for Fair Access would give the universities independence from government intervention and free students from top-up fees"

So it would seem David Cameron has changed the policy on limiting university places - something I was in favour of - fortunately all the immigrants from the EU are providing us with plumbers, builders and carpenters, so when the entire population are graduates they'll have people to sue.

As for allowing more students into university, as a governor of a comprehensive school I see children not going to university because they are scared of the debt they will build up. As one said to me "$25,000 - that's more than the mortgage my Dad's been paying for the last 20 years."

Well, the BBC link (Jan 06) clearly states that the Tories now back tuition fees. I know that Labour introduced them after saying that they wouldn't (in England at least), and I'm not defendng that. It's my belief that the Tories would have done exactly the same had they won the election, only without an access regulator to ensure fair play.

As far as I can tell, the Tories policy is still to abolish the access regulator because they have no interest in ensuring fairness in access to university. It's difficult to tell exactly what Tory policies are at the moment, but I won't make a cheap point out of that - that's always true when a new leader takes over an opposition party.

It's not about the numbers that go, it's about ensuring that there's fair competition for the places that are available, particularly for prestigeous universities and popular courses. If universities are to be allowed to set tuition fees up to the maximum allowed, they must prove that they have fair access policies.

What I fear will happen on Higher Education if the Tories ever get back in is that they'll continue to charge student fees, scrap the fair access regulator, and allow certain universities to charge sky high fees for the price of a handful of bursaries.

They'll also stop the tentative moves that some universities are making towards considering the record of the school that applicants go to when considering making offers, sneerily dismissing complaints about fairness and equal opportunity as the 'politics of envy' or 'social engineering' (without ever defining what these mean).

And what you'll end up with is a system of 'who pays, learns' with the rest fighting over a tiny number of bursaries and/or working part time all the way through their course and/or finishing with US-style debts.