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

Fair point but many of them will still associate Howard with "Old Tory" policies. Which I think will count against him.

Kerr, bad news for your Scottish colleagues is the length of collective memory of the Scottish Electorate over the year advance testing of Poll Tax. Why do you think Tommy Sheridan is still so popular up here and George Galloway for that matter.

I'm sure Michael Howard would like to think that the electorate have heard of him. Surely thats why the Tories are about to anoint him, because of his recognition factor withe electorate as a man who has been in government before...

Howard's vanity will be his undoing in that case, because the first time he mentions 'When I served in the government under Baggie and John...' half the elctorate will vote against him on principle, or as he would say, 'prncple'.

Well, Scotland's a bit of an odd one anyway- all those SNP candidates flitting about the place. To be honest, politics up there are a bit of a mystery to me.


Oh, and they're not 'my colleagues as such- it's not like I'm a party activist

Fair enough Kerr.

Yes the SNP are a new one on me until recently. I'm only starting to get a handle on them and the SSP as well. 6 party politics up here you know. Then there are the independents.

See, if a party activist who lives up there finds it confusing, how are us Englanders supposed to cope?

Interesting that Galloway has been mentioned.
Howard will suffer at the hands of the media in the same way that Galloway has and will in future.

( I went on the Febuary demo, as I am sure a lot of you did, but he was way out of line with his remarks about the troops and inciting Arabs etc )

This will haunt him, even if he is popular at home, in the same way as the poll tax will Micheal Howard.

Now unless there is a road to Damacus conversion a la Portillo then at best all he can hope for is to hold the party together, lose the next election and be replaced by the real contender.

Then Davis , Portillo, Patten even will be ready to strike.

In the mean time, the only opposition th the government is from within the Labour party, the Mail faction of the press and maybe the Liberals in some areas.

Howard does seem to embody the " nasty party " image the Teresa May talks about.

"half the elctorate will vote against him on principle, or as he would say, 'prncple'"

I don't think he'd say either Blues, he is unfamiliar with the word/concept...

Yes, I had been thinking that its the final confirmation of the 'nasty party' tag.

Ruled by Dracula.

Nice.


Geggs

Kelli- Sad but true.

As for the other one, well, he has a ready made slogan, courtesy of Mel Brooks;

'Come on folks, be a smarty,
Come and join the nasty Party.'

Well, after two terms of a supposedly 'nice' smiley TB, maybe the electorate might be pursuaded that they need a 'nasty' party to kick a few backsides and get things going again...

New Labour hasn't worked
Old labour's a dinosaur
The conservative party's been a joke
Maybe they should go back to the Conservative Party that dragged Britain out of the winter of discontent?

Sounds promising:

"We're bxstxrds, we admit,
but look what happened with a slimy git".

Oh dear, oh dear.

The same party who gave us 2 reccessions, 3 million unemployed, highest interest rates for decades, shut down steel, coal, shipbuilding. Privatised our national assets - Shall I go on?

Please dont tell me people are proud of this record of acheivements?

And despite what everyone insists on saying, Labour policies are working in certain areas. The poorest levels of society in Britain are demonstrably better off now than they ever were under a Tory Government.

At least TB doesn't scapegoat single mothers and preach Victorian values while shagging his secretary.

Those of us old enough to remember sitting in the dark in a powercut during the winter of 78 can forgive 'some' of what she did...

And the current labour government haven't exactly improved things have they?

Sure, interest rates are low... and the spectre of an _enormous_ collapse in the housing market hanging around in the background... see where that leaves unemployment figures...

>At least TB doesn't scapegoat single mothers and preach Victorian >values while shagging his secretary.

How do you know? We only found out last year just how close an eye the man Major kept on his cabinet....

Would people stop reminding me of that whole sordid affair? *shudder*

Well, I am old enough to just about remember the 3 day week, power cuts etc etc, Not going to school because there was no heat or light.

Who was that?

Step forward Ted Heath, Tory PM I think!!!!
You could tell the way was going to be under a Thatcher government from those times - remember Thatcher the milk snatcher?

Yes I agree that the labour party of that time wasnt a model party, but its learnt, changed, adapted and to get back to the point of this thread so was the Tory party under IDS.

It would be faster with Patten, Portillo, Clarke etc etc,
Now its just reverting to type as that nasty party.

Cards on the table, as a member of the labour party and a supporter of the new labour experiment I think we have moved forward a huge amount in the last few years. Of course things can always be better, but a low tax party cannot deliver the levels of public service we want and need in this country. So Taxation has to be finely balanced and I can understand those who say the line has now been reached, but more money is getting through to the services.
However, we all have a responsibility to behave with restraint and not gobble that cash up in big wage claims.

Also I will say that I am a bit bitter and twisted as the same Portillo ended my RAF career when I was made redundant along with several hundred other hi tech engineers, and the tory's still call themselves the party of strong defence.

I will ask who introduced the fuel escalator system to increase petrol prices automatically?
Who got rid of the link between pensions and earnings and now say they want to restore it?
Who opposed the miminmum wage?
which party is the most likely to restore capital punshment?

OHHHH on a roll now!

Blair can shag his secretary all he wants without censure from me, as could the entire Tory Party if they hadn't run that ridiculous Victorian Values campaign.

As for forgiving Thatcher. No way, no how. Never forgive, never forget. (Mind you, that applies equally to the cretin Clalghan who let it get that bad in the first place.)

God, it's like reading an issue of Private Eye- without any party loyalties you get to sit there and take the piss constantly without suggesting an alternative