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

It seems like the Tories got their knickers in a right twist today about Gordon Brown's announcment in Iraq concerning the cut in numberrs in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7023735.stm

Oh yes well we didn't have years and years of news management, photo opportunities, and all round cynical playing with politics during the Thatcher years. "Will the last person to leave the country please turn out the lights.' was the headline in the Sun during one of the General Elections involving Kinnock. He was coinsistently ridiculed by the Tory press. Some may argue rightly, because he wasn't up to the job of the running the country, even though he did good stuff in sorting out the Labour party.

Blair has been sneered at mercilessly for his spin tactics. And now they are whining about Gordon. Get real. That's the reality of politics in the modern media age. I think the Tories are still just green with envy and rage because Labour are now just so much better at it than them.

They had a good teacher.

http://content.bbcmotiongallery.com/images/67/12/6712-2_thumb.jpg

The Tories whining strikes me as hypocritical and pathetic as the McCanns whining about people other than them manipulating the media.

I htnk its grossly unfair to people who had to grow up under the Tories to attack them for "just" whining hypocrites.

What about the lies, racism, homophobia and jingosim. What about the nepotism, support for dodgy regimes and for being the party that privatised the trains.

Whereas Brown's lying about bringing a thousand troops home for Christmas is OK, because it's Labour lies not a Tory lie? And his adoption of cynical jingoism lite mention emphasising Britshness dozens of times in his conference speach is better than a sincere belief in the value of nationhood?

I was attempting a glib reply to a (to my mind) deliberately provocative opening post and not attempting to whitewasht the conduct of New labour, old labour or even new coke, just saying something about the Tories. Does your failure to mention the Plaid Cymru mean you are trying to obscure their faillings?




"And his adoption of cynical jingoism lite mention emphasising Britshness dozens of times in his conference speach is better than a sincere belief in the value of nationhood?

I understand individual words there but what you mean by putting them in that order I need help to understand. Dont know if that's down to you me or both of us but I just dont get what you're on about.

Who, 10 years back promised us squeaky clean and honest government, in place of the Conservatives?

TB

Who on achieving the position of PM promised us proper government and observance of The House of Commons, with no more spin?

GB

A change of one letter then.......not much else?

Novo

The ever so righteous Gordy, master of spin and duplicity. 1000 more troops coming home before Christmas. Err....500 have already returned and 500 aren't being deployed. Same old new labour.

Won't be long before Gordy's chickens begin to come home to roost. Hosue price bubble fueled by record levels of personal debt, goverment borrowings at record levels, pensioners destitute because of his massive raid on pension funds. All down to him during his ten years as the best chancellor the country has ever had. Just wait and see, but I hope you don't have a mortgage or credit card debts.

No, they're a bunch of vicious whining hypocrites
The only thing that could make me vote Labour again is the possibility of the Tories getting it

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Yep, there are record levels of personal debt. And record levels of
- personal income
- personal wealth
- govt income
- pensions
- etc

If the economy grows constantly, then we'll have record levels of most things.

Pensions are in crisis because of more things than taxes on them. One, pensions are liabilities for companies, which now have to be put on the balance sheet. So the underfunding is staring you in the face (if you look). Second, most companies paid out huge amounts to shareholders during the 90s rather than topping up their pension funds. *Not* the govt's fault, that one. Third the stock market shrank by half around 2000-03, which is where most pensions funds are invested.

I'm no great fan of GB, but to blame him for all those things is bullocks. Duplicitous? Yeah, but he's just playing the same game as all the rest of them.

I think if the Tories want to carry on with that same old broken record about 'spin'. It'll get them absolutely nowhere. The average person recognises that in the present 24 hour, mass media age, you need to use it to your advantage when you can because the media will often attack you with 'spin' against you.

I would not vote for a party that showed itself to be so utterly incompetant at news management, because it makes you wonder just how competant they'd be at running the country. Tony possibly took things too far. Gordon's doing it in a more sensible way. He was sneered at for the Thatcher visit to Downing street. But from what I understand it was as much her idea as his, and being the clever media woman she is I'm sure she would never have chosen to go in and out the front door with its attendant photo opportunities, unless it suited her purpose to do so. She knows Gordon makes a far better PM than Cameron.

I was amused that on the day she visited Downing street, David Cameron was shown openning a 'wildlife' centre. All very laudable, but in contrast to the Thatcher visit, just a bit silly.

Consider what a government (any government) would have to do to prevent the opposition whining:

Make no potentially popular policies or announcements for several months prior to an election. Or a potential election.

Never change or amend a policy, ever, regardless of whether circumstances have changed.

Set no policies that could possibly be construed to be similar to opposition policies, opposition opinions, or something a member of the opposition mentioned in a speech sometime within living memory, even if said policy is the *obvious thing to do*.

Yes, the Tories are a bunch of whining hypocrites. Cameron is just covering up his own rapid about-face back to traditional right-wing Toryism.

Someone just told me that Cameron is going to give his 'Save the Tory party from oblivion speech' without autocue. Is this going to be as an efficient secret weapon as John Major's speeches on hustings on his real life soapbox in 1997?

Don't you just love the Tories' gimmicks? Maybe that's their idea of 'spin'?

just been readin his bluster on bbc news.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7024919.stm

he knows he can't win (he ain't even got the full support of his own party!) so I guess he's just trying to do as much damage as possible before taking up his executive board positions once he's lost.

David Cameron: Conference speech

David Cameron has challenged Gordon Brown to call an immediate general election, the Tory leader said the Conservatives were ready for a snap poll, adding: "We will fight, and Britain will win."

"Today I want to make a speech about why I want to lead our country," he said.

"I'm afraid it's going to be a bit longer and I haven't got an autocue. I haven't got a script. I have just got a few notes.

I imagine he only had one card with one sentence on it. "Come and have a go if you think your old enough Jocko"

If Gordon calls an election now it looks like Cameron is a steely nerved underdog with the guts to call Gordon out for a fight. Gordon loks like he is playing to Camerons agenda and doesnt know his own mind.

Cameron behind in the poles right now could gain a lot of kudos through this and even more if his taunting causes Gordon to cal an election soon. Which is a smart tactic because he has much to gain and nothing to lose if it happens. If brown doesnt call an election son Cameron can say the PM is running scared and afraid of the voters choices.


To all thos blustering posters still tamping their feet yes the New labour experiment has shown them to be just as capable of all the nasty underhand things the Tories are but that doesnt stop me hating the Tory party and metaphorically kicking them while they are down.

Same old story over and over, they just keep switching parts. If the numbers show that marketting is simply more effective than decorum and honesty, then how is anyone to fight against that?

>>marketting is simply more effective than decorum and honesty<<

I don't think decorum and honesty has ever been part of politics, even in the hey day of soap boxes. The marketing stuff is just a bit more mass media and hi tec now. My bet is that Gordon will now wait a few days to see how the press plays it before he makes his decision.

blicky makes an interesting point in that because of what Cameron said in his speech, he can be seen to have said the best thing possible in the situation. So maybe it really was the speech that would save the Tories, rather than a speech to kick start any sort of genuine hope of winning the next election or even coming close. It seems very likely that the best the Tories can hope for is to decrease the Labour majority. And maybe Cameron has actually accepted this. And he'll be praised for his pragmatism, much as Kinnock was eventually.

I'll admit I have a massive emotional dislike for the Tories, because of living all through the Thatcher era and seeing what they did. There can't be too much humiliation I like to see heaped upon the Tories over and over and over. They certainly never stopped inflicting that on their adverseries.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays with the media in the next few days.

Very wise posts.

Because if you criticise this government you'll find yourself with a criminal record.

Pedro - nice to see someone pedalling Gordon's excuses for him. The vagaries of the stockmarket in the 1930's failed to de-rail pensions. It took a special man like Gordon to do that. To quote Labour's own pensions spokesman (though of course he's was sacked pretty quickly once they found out he was an honest man) - Frank Field - "We had a pension system that was the best in Europe, now we have the worst."

Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, unburied bodies, rubbish lining the streets versus the balls to reform the economy from the fag end of the industrial revolution to a leading nation in service industries. Get real guys.

Oh and by the way it was Ken Clark who did all the footwork and negotiation to give the Bank of England independance

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If you actually read my post, Mckay, I'm not sure you understood it. I don't like GB much, but I wouldn't blame him for things that aren't his fault. My last post was basically a list of factors, *other* than taxing them, which put pensions in a worse state. And I didn't even mention demographics..

And of course one of the biggest factors in the current pensions black hole (such as in mine ) is the massive ocntribution holidays taken in the 80s and early 90s by many firms.

Royal Mail for example to a 17 year holiday.

And why was this? Well legislation passed in the early 80s preventing pensionstrusteess from building up too big a surplus. Who was the government in the 80s again?

And nothing to do with Gordy's £4bn per year raid on Pension Fund dividends that Treasury Civil Srvants warned him would cause significant shortfalls and pension reductions.