This morning’s press targets: Luntz and Brown
December 10th, 2006
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..why is a Murdoch paper gunning for Gordon?
The main highlights from this morning papers are an attack on the US pollster, Frank Luntz, by Nick Cohen in the Observer and a series of critical stories about Gordon Brown in the Sunday Times that, taken together, look as though the paper is turning against him.
The Cohen piece under the heading “How a celebrity pollster created Cameron” covers the impact on the Tory leadership contest last year of the famous Newsnight piece on the focus group by Frank Luntz.
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Cohen’s piece is probably overstated. What people often do not recall is that on the morning that this was broadcast the Guardian published details of an online ICM focus group which came to broadly the same conclusions.
The Sunday Times, part of the Murdoch media empire, won’t make good reading for the Chancellor this morning, particularly as it comes after what should have been his big week - his “final” pre-budget report.
For the paper has article after article all linked to Brown’s big Commons statement and all covering it in a critical manner. It devotes its entire leader to the speech under the headline “The Artful Dodger” which concludes “..So we have had a good look at the next prime minister. He spins and he twists. He gives us, if not dodgy dossiers, then flaky figures. He appears to suck up to business and ordinary families while making life harder for them. If this is a vision for Britain’s future, its inspiration is Dickens’ Artful Dodger, not Blake’s Jerusalem.”
If that was not enough there’s a report under the heading “Brown’s spin doctor tried to fix budget TV coverage” which describes efforts by an aide of the Chancellor to get Sky News, also Murdoch-owned, to prevent the former minister, Stephen Byers, from being asked to provide a commentary. An email to the channels is reproduced suggesting that the choice was “.. a bit like having Shaun Woodward on to speak for the Tories, or Norman Scott’s dog for the Liberals.”
The content of the statement is analysed in a big Focus feature under the heading “Why Gordon’s figures don’t add up”.
Finally, the paper’s regular political commentator, the former Tory minister Michael Portillo, speculates on whether “Is boom-time Brown about to turn into Crash Gordon?” No surprise there given Portillo’s background but it is the totality of the paper’s coverage that should be worrying for the likely next PM.
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Portillo concludes Cameron should not aim to win the next general election in order that he can win the one after that, in seven or eight years time. Is Portillo really a great political strategist?
It is less clear what Murdoch is up to. This looks like a shot across Gordon’s bows, so presumably Murdoch is after a quid pro quo of some sort, but what? Have we overlooked some threat to News International in the PBR?
My guess is that nice Mr Murdoch (peace and blessings be upon him) is looking to manufacture a contest for both the next Labour liedership and the next General Election. He has stated in at least one media interview that he doesn’t want a cut-’n'-run election after Gordon presumably takes over (”to see what he’s made of” - as if taxpayers didn’t already know). It also appears that David Cameron isn’t spending enough time licking his boots for his liking and wants to give the Tory leader another chance.
I wouldn’t conclude anything about Murdoch until the NOTW switches too.
Murdoch papers these days simply decide who’s going to win and then back that person. They do not really attempt to influence who will win. They want to retain their perceived influence, therefore they back a winner.
David Cameron will pursue his own course regardless.
What I cannot understand is why GB has left himself open by financing so much of the increase in public spending via council tax which hits those just above the benefits level disproportionally. These people (White Van Man etc.) who voted tory under Thatcher, bought their council house and returned to new labour in 1997 are the key to winning countless marginal seats and council tax is now high enough to hurt them, not just pensioners.
Then there is also the rather strange allocation in central grant that means that certain infamous inner london and other boroughs can charge lower than average council tax. Here in Bedfordshire the central govt grant allocation means that luton gets £75M next year whereas Bedfordshire cc gets £61M despite having three times the population. Shurely Shome Mishtake?
Council tax is now peoples 2nd biggest bill after mortgages (and for an increasing number of people is more than the mortgage) and this issue will become an increasing hot potato for Mr Murdochs Sun readers. I think GB has strategically blundered.
Labour has been without a credible opposition for so long that it feels it can do anything it wants and still win. Even with the rise of Cameron, old habits die hard. And who knows? If the Tories have to get ten percent more of the vote simply to win control of the Commons, it might not matter anyway.
The Sunday Times has always been the most critical of Labour of the Murdoch press, just as the Times has always been the most positive. The editors have a degree of latitude to suit their tastes or perceived readership preference, though Murdoch makes it plain that he decides on the line when it comes to elections. Even then, the editors hint at more or less entuhsiasm. The Sun is currently mostly sarcastic about the Tories, but from time to time has a pro-Tory or anti-Labour day to balance things a bit. Either way, it’s a great pity that the intentions of a handful of proprietors are so significant in forming public attitudes, though the power of the print media is in gentle decline.
An interesting nettle that no Government has grasped wouuld be to give political parties the right to appeal to a genuinely independent PCC (as opposed to the bunch of press insiders that currently dominate it) and get a right of reply with equal space if major distortions had appeared. The press would absolutely hate it (at present only individuals, not parties, can complain, and complainants are pressured to settle for an obscure minor correction), but it would IMO do more to give all parties a fairer hearing and cheer up British politics than any other reform. Imagine if the Mirror had to be accurate about the Tories, the Express about Labour, the Sun about the LibDems…
“No surprise there given Portillo’s background but it is the totality of the paper’s coverage that should be worrying for the likely next PM”
Din’t the Sunday Times back the tories even in 3005 GE?
6… A very good idea I think. Not just political parties though but other institutions too, charities, companies etc. etc.
That bastard Murdoch should piss off and stop interfering in British politics. It is high time we stopped buying his shit, and reading the real news on sites like this instead.
A Lib Dems spokesman about Holyrood elections: “All the evidence shows that the Lib Dems can be the largest party after May’s election and that is what we’re focused on”
erm, what is this evidence? I must have missed it, because I can’t recall a poll showing the Libdems leading….
7 Oh God I hope we’ve moved on from the current political parties by 3005.
The Sunday Times have always shown a visceral hatred of Labour both ‘New’ and ‘Old’. And Michael Portillo-half of Labour’s ad campaign ‘Mr Boom and Mr Bust’-is surely being ironic?
I read yesterday someone describe the most cringe-making speech to any party conference ever being Portillo’s ‘Who Dares Wins’. It reminded me how quickly things are forgotten in politics. His rehabillitation was so complete that I had quite forgotton that apart from Michael Howard he was probably the single biggest reason for the dancing in the streets in 1997
Someone’s done a Murdoch deal. We should find out who within 7 days.
6 Sorry Nick but the point of a free press is it can mislead, be opinionated, spin and misquote. Individuals can be harmed and deservedly should have a right to appeal but organisations, whether political parties, religions or charities, are in the game too. Perhaps if we have a PPC set up as you want we can also have a HoC Committee to stop Chancelors cherrypicking statistics, re-announcing initiatives and spending plans, making false claims as to their achievements and so on.
I’m not surprised by the response to the public spending review as it was a re-statement of much of the last budget, a bit of tax raising to cover a gap in receipts and otherwise lacking in substance or vision.
The editorial line of the Sunday Times is irrelevant because its readers are presumed to be able to think for themselves.
Obviously I tend to agree on Luntz, as I said so at the time. Chrisco provided an expert analysis of the influence Luntz has on cameron several months ago.
http://www.liberalreview.com/node/214/track
My unfashionable view is that the tories would now be doing better under the leadership of Davis. It may still be the case that the will do better in the next GE under Cameron than they would have done under Davis - but probably the “brought up on a council estate” story would run better than “spent my youth in a school near Slough” version.
8: Certainly - anyone who could point out a clear distortion would be entitled to complain.
14: I disagree, Ted - the point of a free press is surely *not* that it can mislead and misquote. The point is that it has freedom of opinion: if it represents the situation accurately and then has a biased and unfair editorial, that’s not a problem, but we all know that that’s not how it’s done. Britain’s press is IMO by a large margin the most destructive in Western Europe (I scan most of the Continental press intermittently), and it undermines all parties and the entire political process.
I’m also in favour of an independent body to comment proactively on Government statistics, good idea (we almost have it, but not quite). Channel 4 (whse news coverage I generally dislike for similar reasons) has a useful Factcheck service which tries to weigh up the facts on controversies. I don’t always agree with their conclusions but I think they make an honest attempt.
So early yet so many messages from that LibDem parallel universe.
IMO Cameron has done a fantastic job for the Tories, the idea that DD could be doing better is really weird. I just don’t get it. I speak from a Labour perspective, with Cameron let’s give respect where respect is definitely due.
Is it the case that (some parts of) the LD/Tories are now institutionalized as opposition parties they just have to criticise people- no matter what. I remember that Labour used to be a bit like that in the early nineties.
[6][17] I’m sorry, but I really do think less of Nick Palmer for those two posts. Why should political parties have a right to complain that he wishes to deny to non-party lobbies and pressure groups inside parties? One consequence of that would be to inhibit the press, for example, from reporting favourably on any group of MPs who were thinking about bolting from their Party to form a new one. And as for what the BNP would do with such a law…
As for the European press, well in France at least they’re notorious for colluding with corruption …
19 I said it was unfashionable. Davis does not sound like he is spinning - but I can see the other side of the argument.
What do people think of the Labour tax dodge story?
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2062490.ece
It is true that from a Labour point of view Cameron couldn’t be better. He seems to be everything a Labour voter could wish for. Whether this will bring the nirvana we all hope for-two parallel Labour Parties-is not yet certain. Despite many of Labours fine achievements over the last ten years not everyones convinced. Cameron obviously is but can he drag his party with him?
Just to-day I read that one of his front bench wants to start slapping ‘Hoodies’. Very confusing for the poor Hoodies!
22 No Roger only confusing for the Labour spinners that create the ‘Hug a Hoodie’ smear. What do they do now? Reid fails to meet his targets, Blair admits his party policy if multiculturalism is dangerous, the Iron Chancellor is found guilty of ‘Flakey figures’ and plod is at the door. The HRA bites them in the backside daily and the European Court is about to award about 10 billion to UK business increasing the already mangled PSBR.
No help from the Smirker either with her arithmetically challenged letters, is there?
17 - Nick, facts may be objective but the subjective use of them is opinion and often misleading. I don’t agree with your conclusion that we need a Commission for Truth. There are lots of sources out there - Channel Four’s factchecker. Polly Toynbee and Factchecking Pollyanna, Google, Wikipedia etc. I get annoyed by spin like Hug a Hoodie or today Melissa Kite’s deliberate skewing of an interview with IDS but these are a result of lack of clarity, forethought or preparation by the poiticians. The media are not and should never be a vehicle for politicians but should be effective and sceptical, journalists should be opinionated though I agree reporters should be factual. The European press is too often supine - where are the French versions of The Guardian or Sunday Times investigating France’s murky dealings in Rwanda or Saddams Iraq?
What if Sunny Jim had returned from Barbados and said he was concerned about the situation and going back to number 10 to address these problems rather than “I don’t think other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos” then we wouldn’t have seen the headline “Crisis, what Crisis?” - either a a fair take on what he said or a deliberate distortion - you decide.
[24] Exactly, Ted.
I’m sure if Nick Palmer thought our press was more biassed than it was in the heyday of Lord Beaverbrook and the Daily Herald he’d've said so.
Latest William Hill Deputy odds
H Benn 7/2
J Cruddas 9/2
P Hain 6/1
A Johnson 6/1
H Harman 7/1
H Blears 8/1
D Milliband 8/1
J Straw 14/1
T Jowell 14/1
J Reid 20/1
Y Cooper 25/1
A Milburn 33/1
P Hewitt 50/1
M Beckett 50/1
A Darling 50/1
G Brown 66/1
E Balls 66/1
D Blunkett 66/1
C Clarke 66/
Labour in Scotland believe it would be better as a minority govt rather than a coalition with LDs. Could have implications with Brown?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2496853,00.html
… and these were the post Conference odds (Hills) just 10 weeks ago
Johnson 2/1
Hain 7/2
Straw 5/1
Harman 8/1
Cruddas 8/1
Benn 10/1
The difficulty with starting a soap opera is that it soon takes on a life of it’s own. Whether we should hug ‘Hoodies’ or slap them is just an illustration of the confusion this type of politics produces. You can’t start a hare like this running and expext to know where it’ll take you.
where’s that van full of money for Cruddas, I need to book a 6 month cruise…
depite having put money on him I can’t see Cruddas having a dogs chance. It’s got to be Benn or Harman
27 - And he illustrates clearly the dishonesty of coalition government, and why I firmly believe it leads to secretive and compromised governing.
“An advantage of minority government is that we would not have to decide policies behind closed doors within a coalition but we could win votes on the strength of the arguments. If it’s a good idea other parties could vote it down but they would have to account for their actions to the voters.”
And you can see that the Lib Dems are at least true to form, and a Focus-leaflet writ large:
“Relations deteriorated to new depths when Nicol Stephen took over as Lib Dem leader last year. Labour MSPs have accused Stephen of taking credit for popular policies and of ducking the blame when things have gone wrong”
Priceless.
Thanks for the article Mike. Interesting. Also the Murdoch press were critical of the government in general last week, over things like defence. Perhaps Murdoch is moving away from labour.
Mean while I wonder why the call for no deputy leader election. doe somme one want Gordon to be coronated on the grounds of cost? See?
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/
29 - Mein Gott Roger I agree with one of your posts!
Re donations from the unions
I see that Chris Huhne has proposed that “Donations from trade unions or companies ought to be split according to the votes of the trade union members or shareholders, rather than being given as a block as currently. Block funding is no more defensible than block voting.”
uhm, how is it practicable? Does he want a “who should get the money?” ballot everytime?
And anyway if union members are unhappy to see their unions to give money to Labour, they can always leave the union or propose to severe the links with Labour
32 - “An advantage of minority government is that we would not have to decide policies behind closed doors within a coalition but we could win votes on the strength of the arguments. If it’s a good idea other parties could vote it down but they would have to account for their actions to the voters.”
Fine in principle. The problem is when a government needs to implement correct, but unpopular policies. Which is why majority government through FPTP is a better bet.
26
That’s an overround of 140% :
Why people should be surprised at Murdoch appearing to change sides is beyond me. Murdoch has ALWAYS gone with the majority view, even when it went against his own political beliefs. In essence, the current pollster view is that it could be a hung parliament. Logically, Murdoch HAS to have a foot in each camp. Going further, Brown’s performance was such utter tripe that if the Times, as a serious newspaper, had not pointed out the glaring fudges, it’s own standing might be jeered at by others. To cap it all, Brown has mismanged a golden scenario so badly that Britain will be in hock for decades with underperfoming schools, hospitals and police.
32 Robin. “Priceless” ….but true !!
……………….
Lovely day at Cheltenham yesterday ….. failed to spot “peter the punter” among the 25,000 present …. might have been the odd chap with red trousers ranting at a rails bookmaker !!
36 - Alex, I agree totally. FPTP is the best that we have, PR leads to the weaknesses in coalition government (some of which are highlighted in HF’s link above).
I think that Jack McDonnell was alluding to the fact that minority government is preferable (infinitely so in my opinion) to coalition government with the Lib Dems.
1. Portillo may have a point. Cameron has, with regard to the A list, the London mayoralty and leaving the EPP, shown himself to be a very poor negotiator. In a hung parliament, he would be caught in the crossfire between the Lib Dems challenging him to live up to his liberal rhetoric and his own backbenchers.
3. Quite the ST is possibly the least important paper in News Intl and has usually provided a crumb of comfort to the Tories even when the rest was solidly behind New Labour. The Sun is the most important naturally and for that reason will be the last to switch. YOu are probably right that the real straw in the wind is the NOTW.
Link in 16 (above) should be
http://www.liberalreview.com/blogs/apollo/vote_blue_go_green_is_luntz_on_c
Tabman has a new post on the subject.
6 - Why not use the current recourse you have to the courts? (Political parties don’t, admittedly, but individuals do, and how many stories really don’t refer to individuals).
Answer - it’s embarrassing for politicians to be seen trying to intervene in this way. And when you propose an “independent PCC”, my worry is that you mean a quiet, politician-dominated little quango which will let you pull the strings out of the light of day.
38.Made me laugh! First few lines souded thoughtful and then suddenly a gasket blew!
Murdoch cares about money and making it. The British consumer is tightening up as Brown mnakes our economy high tax. Murdoch loses money. He wants the next Blair without a Brown attached. Straw? I backed him at 33/1 a few months ago. I like money too.
For someone like myself, brought up in an era where newspapers were clearly divided on party political lines, the present situation is fascinating. Murdoch is obviously using his papers to back both sides, taking out a little insurance in case Cameron wins. The Mail this morning is even more interesting, running anti-Cameron stories, £50,000 bung to meet the dear leader, a piece on a spat between Cameron and Davis. The Mail, Sunday or Daily being critical of a Tory leader, I still can’t get my head around it!
Re 47, Coldstone, it is so hard to believe that it can’t be true, but maybe the papers are now calling it on a case by case basis as they see it rather than slavishly following a particular line?
I know it can’t be true, but it would be nice if it was.
Does anyone remember the name of the PFI firm in a tax haven that owns the treasury buildings?
42. This is drivel, sorry. I’m no cheerleader for Murdoch, but the Sunday Times is one of the most influential papers in the country - not least because its got relatively massive sales for a broadsheet (it must be one of the biggest selling serious Sunday newspapers in the world).
Editorially it also dominates, for good or ill. From its Books pages (highly important) to its Business section (much admired) to its Travel supplement (a massive brand name) it has almost certainly got more collective clout than any other Sunday paper in Europe.
Sometimes the paper is too-aware of its importance, and comes over all pompous and smug. But that’s a different issue.
49. I said least influential in News Intl, that is not the same as saying that is the least influential in the country. PLease acknowledge the difference. You are correct it does play a very strong agenda setting role. But in terms of importance for endorsement in the Murdoch press it ranks third behind the Sun, the key prize, and NOTW.
BTW O/T Paul Linford speculates Bolsover going the way of Chesterfield when the Beast steps down. Is this possible at all.
O/T Don’t Labour supporters cringe when they see gimmicks like this morning’s on the CSA, advertised as major planks of policy?
Re 47 coldstone “The Mail, Sunday or Daily being critical of a Tory leader, I still can’t get my head around it!”
Simple, Paul Dacre is a friend of Gordon Brown.
50.”BTW O/T Paul Linford speculates Bolsover going the way of Chesterfield when the Beast steps down. Is this possible at all”
Very unlikely in the short term, I would say. Chesterfield was a 11% majority, Bolsover is a 40%+ majority. The Libdems had a decent local base in Chesterfield (19 councillors in 1999 elections), they don’t even have councillors in Bolsover (I think)
50. Sorry, again wrong. The Sunday Times is Murdoch’s UK news flagship (it is also enormously profitable). For instance: Steltzer, Murdoch’s guru and supposed friend of Brown, writes in the paper every week.
If the Sunday Times is turning against Brown then that is of considerable importance - because it might signal a change in overall Murdoch approach to Brown. Where the flagship leads, the Sun and the NoTW will probably follow, and perhaps the Times, too.
Moreover, the Sunday Times - which on some days outsells the Observer, Independent on Sunday, and Sunday Telegraph COMBINED - has a very hefty influence on the UK chattering classes.
I suppose it is arguable that the Sun has an equal importance coz it affects more voters, albeit less voluble ones, but this is only arguable. The idea that the News of the World is more important than the Sunday Times in any way is frankly laughable. Does anyone pick up the News of The World and think - my God, Jordan is having an affair with Emma Bunton’s vicar, I must vote Lib Dem?
Titter.
54.”If the Sunday Times is turning against Brown then that is of considerable importance - because it might signal a change in overall Murdoch approach to Brown. Where the flagship leads, the Sun and the NoTW will probably follow, and perhaps the Times, too.”
The Sunday Times backed the tories also in 2005 GE.
54. So Stelzer writes in the Times and acros the Empire. You seem to be drawing a false line. The ST is of great importance, but not as much as the Tabloids in terms of importance of endorsement. If you are talking long term opinion forming/agenda setting etc you have a case. But in terms of short term hit for floating voters between Lab and Con rather more despite your tittering are likely to be found reading the NOTW than the ST.
52
I’m not sure ‘friendship’ is relevant, after all Beaverbrook was a great friend of Michael Foot. The Murdoch debate is an interesting one, Tory posters laud Cameron for not getting into bed with him, then when his papers are critical of Labour, start getting excited he might be coming ‘onside’
55 - mere details, Andrea. Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant
50. PS. In fact I would go so far to say that the Sunday Times is the most important newspaper in the country, in terms of political influence - because of its combination of massive sales, intellectual heftiness, and general neutrality - its a bellwether.
What I mean is: Other papers are intellectually important - e.g. The Guardian, the Sunday Telegraph - but you know where they are coming from, they are never going to shift from one party to another, ergo they lack cruciality. Other papers have a demotic power in terms of sheer sales - Daily Mail, the Mirror, the Sun - but they do not influence the intellectual debate. Some papers like the Express, the Star and the Independent are completely ignored, poor things.
So I’d put the Sunday Times pretty near the top of the tree in overall and combined importance. Maybe the Times and the Guardian close behind.
If the sunday times is as effective as you suggest it just shows that newspapers aren’t very influential. The ST has been anti- Labour in all it’s guises for as long as I can remember yet their fortunes have ebbed and flowed regardless. Andrew Neil as editor hated Labour with a passion.
My own feeling is that newspapers reflect their readership rather than influence it. If a newspaper regularly spews out politics that readers don’t like they are more likely to change their paper than their party.
Is it not interesting how much tax avoidence is involved in government an Labour circles? (more details on my blog
)
53 - can believe that once the ‘Beast’ has retired, the majority will drop quite a bit, but would be amazed if Bolsover ever approached marginality given the mining traditions of the seat
The Cohen article is based on a completely false premise, as such it’s pretty worthless journalism (as worthless as Luntz’ ‘infotainment’ if not less so).
I’m always amazed at how easily people go along with what they are told that they remember, I, however, easily recall that Cameron was already in pole position well before this. The truth (as opposed to the subsequent spin) is that Cameron left it late to make a splash, allowing the other candidates to hare off and them when he did so, launched his campaign with a much better organised and effective way. All of this before the tory conference.
Luntz only affects to have power and all that people like Cohen do is build him up unnecessarily for their own ends.
60. Well yes, actually, I’d kind of agree with that - I’m not sure newspapers of any kind have any direct influence any more: i.e. if they say Vote for Tufton Bufton do readers really take their cue from that? Hm. I’m not sure.
But where papers do have a political influence is in setting a tenor, deciding a theme, campaigning on certain subjects, and of course this influence largely depends on how many members of the chattering classes they reach. The Sunday Times sells 1.4m copies every weekend, it’s a must-read for people who care about politics, even if they hate the paper and Murdoch.
On other levels it matters hugely, too. If you are a writer the Sunday Times Books pages are probably the most important of all: the lead review is a prize beyond compare.
Anyhoo. I’m hoping John Witherow is reading my paeans of praise for his paper and will now give me a column.
53. The Lib Dems didn’t even stand a single candidate in Bolsover in 2003.
This all follows on from the Anatole Kaletsky article in The Times on the PBR which was very critical of Brown.
Kaletsky has in the past always been pretty pro Brown.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1061-2491297.html
65. Many thanks. To be honest, I had just looked at the 2003 seats breakdown, so I wasn’t aware that they didn’t even stand candidates.
I see that there were 10 wards (out of 20) where Lab was returned unopposed in 2003. The only not lab seats are indipendents (and a resident association). The tories stood in 2 wards (and they weren’t very far to get a seat in one). BNP and Socialist Alliance stood a candidate in the whole borough.
Do parties have intentions to fill more candidates next year?
65. Many thanks. To be honest, I had just looked at the 2003 seats breakdown, so I wasn’t aware that they didn’t even stand candidates.
I see that there were 10 wards (out of 20) where Lab was returned unopposed in 2003. The only not lab seats are indipendents (and a resident association). The tories stood in 2 wards (and they weren’t very far to get a seat in one). BNP and Soc*alist Alliance stood a candidate in the whole borough.
Do parties have intentions to fill more candidates next year?
Some odd posts on PR. FPTP makes it hard to implement (mainly long term) policies which are unpopular, because shedding a few % leads to a parliamentary slaughter.
The Sunday Times coverage is no surprise. It was the Times and Sunday Times who spent the best part of three months trying to push the idea that Alan Johnson was up to being prime minister with day after day of uncritical puff piece. They’ve never wanted Brown to be PM and the thought is making them a little desperate.
Labour should only worry if this spreads to the Sun. (The Times and Sunday Times have a low readership - they couldn’t swing things for Johnson, and they are probably speaking now to people who are already anti-Gordon).
68 - And there lies the problem with democracy, it is geared to short termist thinking. Rather than extol the wonders of our current version of democracy it’d be good to know that politicians were at least thinking about how its inherent problems could be negated. The ‘tyranny of the majority’ is the other real challenge that faces any democracy and it hasn’t been successfully addressed yet.
69. “The Sunday Times has a low readership”.
???
Snowflake, pet, haven’t you been reading my screeds? The Sunday Times sells about 1.3million copies every Sunday, and another 150,000 in Ireland. On some days it outsells the Observer, Sunday Telegraph and Independent on Sunday COMBINED.
It is probably the biggest selling serious Sunday newspaper in Europe.
“Low readership”?? Duh. Next thing you’ll be telling us that Gordon Brown is a great chancellor.
re 63. The betting prices during last year’s Tory conference are a good guide to changing perceptions. On the Monday during the day the Cameron price tightened from 10/1 to about 9/1. In the aftermath of the Newsnight Luntz piece it moved to about 4/1.
Even after Cameron’s big speech you could still get 3.6/1. What really changed perceptions and the betting was DD’s speech.
Luntz played a part certainly - but not as critical part as DD’s lacklustre address.
The truth is that the “Iron Chancellor” has long shown a cavalier attitude towards fiscal management. Year after year, his borrowing has turned out to be much higher than his forecasts. Last week’s PBR - less an economic statement than the latest staging post in a remorseless political campaign - was a classic Brown performance. Drunk on ambition, he did nothing to acknowledge the true scale of his liabilities, or the fact that his fiscal rules lie in tatters. Yet the man who presents himself as our next prime minister is living in a never-never land of debt.
QUOTE
In his budget five years ago, the Chancellor said he would borrow a total of £28bn between 2001 and 2006. He has, so far, taken on debts of £129bn during that period. His prediction was a jaw-dropping £100bn astray.
QUOTE
Last week we learnt that the Chancellor intends to borrow another £182bn on our behalf between now and 2012. So he will be taking on extra debts annually, amounting to one and a half times the UK’s total council tax receipts. And, on past form, even this vast amount could be an underestimate.
QUOTE
This borrowing binge has shattered the Chancellor’s much-vaunted “golden” rule, which requires government spending to be balanced over the course of the economic cycle. But Brown keeps moving the goalposts in an absurd bid to convince us it remains intact.
In each of the past four Budgets he has raised his borrowing estimate while pushing forward the expected date when his accounts would move back into surplus. Last week he also shifted the end-date of the economic cycle - for the third time in as many years. By defying expert opinion, and unilaterally deciding that the cycle has now ended, Brown can assert that a new cycle has begun.
That allows him to borrow anew over the next three years - as the general election approaches - while claiming that he can exercise restraint before this new cycle ends some time around 2012 (when the election will be past). This arcane accounting trick gives Brown the fiscal wriggle-room to amass an election war-chest - at our expense - while arguing that his “golden rule” remains intact.
Such behaviour insults our intelligence and undermines this country’s hard-won reputation for fiscal probity. If this is how Brown treats statistical concepts in public, imagine the liberties he is taking behind the scenes. Little wonder the “golden” rule is now derided. “The cycle is lengthening and shortening like a yo-yo,” says the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Item Club says the rule is now “simply a farce”.
Brown’s bull-headed refusal to recognise that his own code has been broken - and to take appropriate action - speaks volumes. Clearly, his blind political ambition now far outweighs any vestige of fiscal responsibility.
QUOTE
It seems to me his legacy is one of high and rising taxes and unreformed public services. Thanks to his borrowing binge, we face more than a decade of high government deficits. Even his central boast, that the UK is “a uniquely high-growth economy”, is nonsense. We have just fallen to 22nd out of 25 in the EU growth league - hardly world-class.
As with so many other home truths, the Chancellor failed to mention this during last week’s PBR. He was too busy dreaming about life in No 10.
Well the facts are there for all to see. Though I do not possess any political affiliations, I still can’t help despising this guy with a vengeance.
Brown’s ego will cost this country dearly and our grandchildren will come to hate him every bit as much as I do.
WOT A FOOKING LIBERTY!!!
Nick Cohen has fallen, hook, line and sinker, for a line spun by someone. Cui bono? I’ll come back to that.
Frank Luntz certainly leans to the right but he makes no secret of his Republican connections and his bias would be unlikely to affect his ability to conduct fair opinion research about internal party elections, Labour or Tory.
The scientific rigour of the Newsnight focus group was compromised by the tv-friendly methodology used but not undermined by it. The idea that Luntz led his naive and suggestible charges by the nose towards Cameron is implausible to those who understand focus groups. It’s also not how it appeared in the film.
If Cameron’s momentum came from a dodgy focus group conducted by Luntz, how does Nick Cohen explain the results of an ICM survey that appeared in the Guardian BEFORE the Luntz/Newsnight initiative?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1583315,00.html
The truth is that Luntz’s work picked up on a genuine, if unexpected, phenomenom - Cameron’s appeal to non-aligned voters. A detailed analysis of the media at the time reveals that the boy David’s bandwagon began to roll after he gave a performance at his campaign launch that impressed the journalists present. Then came ICM. Then Luntz. And, finally, that Conference speech. A star was born.
Having established the junk journalism status of the ‘Luntz created Cameron’ claim let’s now turn to the question of why it is being advanced - to trash Frank Luntz’s cred.
Recently Luntz conducted a similar focus group exercise for Newsnight about the Labour leadership contest. It was interesting for several reasons. Alan Johnson appears to have less ‘man in the street’ appeal than was imagined to be the case. David Milliband is not taken seriously. But the biggest news by far is that John Reid would be much more likely to beat Cameron than Gordon Brown.
We can’t have that, said the Great Clunking Fist. So into battle went his agents and devotees. How many people know about Brown’s pollster, Debbie Mattinson?
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/08/will-deborah-advise-gordon-to-go-for-an-immediate-election/
Ms Mattinson could teach Luntz a thing or two about pretending to be a neutral commentator. She certainly wasn’t advertising her status when she appeared in the Times to tell us how popular Gordon is:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2416848.html
Her disingenuous knocking copy on Luntz appears to form the basis of Nick Cohen’s critique today. I doubt Nick is part of the Brown army but, boy, he’s been a useful idiot.
Another example of how immigration is giving our economy a huge boost…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nimm10.xml
69 - Sunday Times readership is about 3.5million (readership not circulation) - beaten by Sunday Mirror (4m), Mail on Sunday (6m) then NotW (8m). It’s far and away the most read quality Sunday paper.
Fact is Gordon gave a poor performance, recycling announcements and putting in a straight tax rise under pretence of being green. The press plaudits the next day went more to Osborne than Brown. I think the press are judging him now as PM and recognising his weaknesses in that sort of role after 10 years in forefront of government. He may well be different when he is PM but the augries aren’t that good.
I happen to think Gordon is probably right to prefer international action as a response to global warming rather than unilateral UK tax changes but he set up the Sterne Commission, supported the press launch/fanfare, sent the guy off on a world tour then ignored the report ( Sterne’s departure showing what real value Gordon put on report).
Good spot Ibicenco. Follow the link to Deborah Mattinson’s Times article trashing Luntz. Then read Cohen’s piece - he’s lifted the whole thing!
How can Ms Mattinson get away with pretending to be an unbiased expert on political opinion research? She writes about Brown’s popularity as if she’s Nick Sparrow or Andrew Cooper yet SHE’S BROWN’S OWN POLLSTER!
God the media are so dopey sometimes.
Good to see that the Sunday Times is finally realising that the meme that Brown has been a wonderful chancellor ’so you can’t attack his record’ is a myth.
They didn’t really go into pensions or tax credits, both of which have real and lasting problems connected with them, but it’s a start. The real situation is that Brown has kept things floating in electorally sensitive areas but at what price?
Another interesting article from Anthony Wells is on his site by the way, I don’t think anyone has commented on it but his point that Brown’s personality is a greater electoral problem than many imagine is most convincing.
Given that so many have spread the other meme (that Brown will get an electoral bounce) I can’t wait to see what happens over the next twelve months. Go on, elect Brown leader, please…..
Well put 73
The complete irony of the constant media scare stories, which the Blair Brown Cronies (BBC) churn out, ranging from Bird Flu, to Terrorism to Global Warming to Immigration, is that in every event the ‘news’ is used to further impoverish and subjugate the ordinary person.
The real threat to this country is not from any of the above, but is already happening under the Blair /Brown state, perpetrated by the very people the tabloid reading masses believe actually work for them. Even the Orwellian Trolls seemed to have more of an idea of the real world than today’s Sun-reading sheeple.
Brown and Blair have done more to render this country morally and financially bankrupt than any government in History. That the nation simply sits on its hands and waits for the next election - if it even happens - means we will get what we deserve.
‘How can Ms Mattinson get away with pretending to be an unbiased expert on political opinion research’
Bob Worcester has managed it for years.
What I find very depressing about Gay Gordon and the mess he has made of the economy is the complete silence from the BBC. This is not a rant, just an observation. When is Paxman or the BBC news going to challenge Brown?
I could’nt give a stuff about dancing celebrities or Albert Square. When will the BBC recognise their independence and once again become a public service broadcaster? I want to know how a Chancellor who has an obvious behavioural defect, who lectures Parliament like an old Russian premier talking about tractor production in the Ukraine whilst ignoring his starving countrymen, who refuses point blank to answer a question honestly and manipulates the figures, is going to be parachuted in as our next Prime Minister?
The ignorance and apathy of our fellow citizens incredible. When is this country going to wake up to what New Labour are all about?
Nick Cohen is a lazy sod who’s been caught with his pants down. I suspect he was spoon fed the anti-Luntz stuff by some Brownite and was too thick to realise he was being used.
Reid could beat Brown - but only if Labour members realise he’s much more likely to keep them in power that the Great Clunking Loser. Luntz revealed that so he must be ex-ter-min-ated.
54 Sean T.
There are FAR more ’swing voters’ read the NoW than the ST, which largely plays to its readers’ confirmed conservative prejudices. The NoW plays far more to ‘right wing’ prejudices, which are not at all always the same thing.
81 “When is this country going to wake up to what New Labour are all about?”
By and large they quite like this unprincipled pseudo-Toryism. Which is, of course, what the Cameron crew are banking on. Trouble is, there will be a competition with Gordon B for this, with the latter also getting the ‘Old Labour’ sheep vote too.
O/T US Presisential Race - Barak Obama
I have been away for a couple of days and return to find that Obama’s price for the democratic nomination has shortened considerably - now in to 5.8 from 8 on Betfair.
Anybody know of any reason for this?
59, 64, Sean T where do you get this strange perspective on the Sunday Times? And what relevence has ‘the intellectual debate’ to influence in General Elections? The Mail on Sunday has far more of the latter than does the Chicago Sun(day) Times.
As for: “The Sunday Times. . (is). . .a must-read for people who care about politics”, I would reflect that a number of the rather more conservative members of my family gave up buying it as soon as their last cat died - it having lost it’s only useful function in their household (very thick and absorbent).
37 Martyn
The overround is not surprising or, I think, unreasonable in the circumstances. It’s a ‘novelty’ market, illiquid, and vulnerable to inside information. Also, Hills took a lot of bets on Cruddas at big prices and must have a very lopsided book.
But wouldn’t it be helpful if Betfair opened a market!
I think ‘Tory politican criticises Brown’ is on a par with ‘dog bites man’ for novelty value. Do you seriously expect Portillo, who has always been critical of Brown, not to attack him? Personally, I prefer Reid, but the Tories (and the Lib Dems) on this site must be really scraping the barrel if you’re trying to use Portillo’s article of evidence of a general anti-Brown feeling among the public at large.
88. Mike Smithson never claimed the Portillo article, etc, was evidence for a swing against Brown in the public at large. What he did say - quite rightly in my opinion - is that the Sunday Times today is full, to an almost bizarre extent, of anti Brown spin - several major articles all gunning for Gordon.
This is a spectacular broadside from a very important newspaper, a a paper that normally aims for a modicum of balance in its coverage (outside of its Leader columns).
It may well augur a sea-change in the Murdoch stable, against Brown, certainly it is hard to imagine the Sunday Times launching this remarkable attack without The Master’s permission.
Whether it is sustained is the crucial question. If it is, Brown has mucho problemo.
O/T but Just read the article on Anthony Wells site - and tried to think dispassionately about what drives dislikes/likes of politicians. Our HR people have just produced a briefing on career evelopment in which they address the dark side of so called strengths. So self confident can mean egomania, self congratulation, disbelief in your own failure. I’ve always disliked Ken Clarke because for all his blokeishness he comes across to me as an egosistical self congratulatory b******d - overweight, lack of dress sense and disdain for his opposition comes across to me as someone so up his own **** I cannot like him and wouldn’t trust him. Other people though seem to take a shine to the very qualities that turn me off. Gordon comes across to me as much the same but without the humour. I find myself wanting a pin to pop the vanity with. I love it when Osborne gets a rise out of him - not only on political grounds but because I think he deserves it.
Despite all Blair’s manifest failings at base I can’t really dislike him - he’s untrustworthy, money grasping, has led this country into a disastrous war, should be banged up for various crimes but you know, at heart he’s a regular kinda guy with odd in laws etc. Doesn’t mean I’d vote for him but I can understand why people do.
It’s all surface & subjective but in the end power depends on all those subjective judgements and I agree with Anthony Wells that Gordon has been already been judged and found wanting which is why he loses out to DC in the polls.
I can just see the headline now, ‘It was the Sunday Times wo’t won it’ Me-thinks that some of the Tory posters are wandering into ‘Nesta Webster Land’ What on earth they’ll be saying if the Tories lose a fourth GE, who’ll get the blame for that. Stand by the usual suspects: BBC,Guardian,Liberal Left bias in the media….
Re 74 Ibicenco, an excellent piece on “Brown’s pollster, Debbie Mattinson”
71. Yet, despite this, after all their huffing and puffing they only managed to get Johnson’s recognition factor to about 5%! So much for the Sunday Times’ influence. Not to mention that most of their readership is Tory already, so they are hardly going to swing any votes. I really don’t think that the broadsheets have much influence on elections anymore.
Meanwhile the dark shadow of Assistant Commander Yates hangs over everything. Will he be knocking at the door today as is being suggested? Go Yates - nail this bast**d.
The Anthony Wells article is very good on the Brown factor.
“The results have been very consistent. Labour would do badly. Since David Cameron became Conservative leader in December no hypothetical poll of how people would vote with Brown as Labour leader has shown a Labour lead. In the vast majority of cases, it has shown the Conservatives performing better against Brown than they are at present. But does this actually mean anything?
My personal prediction is that, when Gordon Brown actually becomes Prime Minister Labour will experience a strong boost in the polls. Obviously it depends where they are starting from, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they regaining a healthy lead.”
http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
So watch out for an early GE by June 2008. It just depends how long GB thinks his honeymoon will be.
85. PtP. Don’t know if this helps but after seeing him mentioned as one of the two leading contenders along side Hilary Clinton on one of the American news channels, also heard somewhere that the biggest reason he “might” not run was because his wife was not keen. Heard a story that she had now changed her mind and was onside. Don’t know how accurate that is but it might explain the shift and made his chances of running more likely.
Barack Obama has about as good a chance of becoming POTUS as I do.
re 85 & 96. I think that it is in response to the latest polls.
http://www.pollingreport.com/2008.htm#misc
96 Thanks Chris D
5-1 is a mighty tight price for somebody who isn’t certain to run. Makes you wonder what it would be if he formally declared.
Why is this column topped with photos of Frankie Howard and Dale Winton?
97 So, AHM, what odds are you offering on yourself and Obama?
101 - Nil.
102 LOL!
Thought so!
Thank you 73. Would that I were a good enough economist and writer to have put it so succinctly.
98 Thanks Mike. Some very interesting poll results.
It is striking that Obama is pooling well despite the fact that 30% of the sample had ‘never heard of him’. Maybe 5-1 isn’t such a tight price.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2496632,00.html
Blears warns over ‘explosive’ immigration
Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor
THE chairman of the Labour party, Hazel Blears, has warned that immigration is set to explode as an issue before the next general election in a way “unseen before in UK politics
Innocent at 20: er, you seem to have completely misread my second post at 17. I say
“Anyone who could point out a clear distortion would be entitled to complain.”
and you reply
“a right to complain that he wishes to deny to non-party lobbies and pressure groups inside parties”
Eh?
Ted, you write:
“The media are not and should never be a vehicle for politicians but should be effective and sceptical, journalists should be opinionated though I agree reporters should be factual.”
I’d agree with all of that. But the current position is that if the Mail falsely claims that you are a paedophile, you can complain to the PCC and force a correction (and sue), but if they falsely claim in an apparently factual report that (say) the LibDems have proposed to legalise paedophilia, the LibDems can’t complain to the PCC (not an individual), nor can they sue, because no individual is named. Why is this restriction necessary to preserve freedom?
My proposal is simply that there should be a recourse if there is a blatantly false report about any group, and not merely about any individual. And yes, the BNP are entitled to protection against *false* reports too - God knows there is enough true material to bash them about.
This just takes the biscuit
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2062490.ece
WE are the government so we hadto do it this way
The Blear article contains these words:
“We must get the message out on every estate and on every street that we are enforcing firm but fair immigration controls.”
This phrase is about as accurate as the statement that ‘nobody cares about immigration’. The words ‘celebration’ ‘arrange’ ‘couldn’t’ and ‘brewery’ come to mind. The only people really affected by Labour’s immigration policies are decent genuine folk, honest visitors and people trying to get married. The front door is impenetrable, the back door is wide open.
While I accept the Blears analysis (or, rather, the analysis someone has fed to her), I cannot think there is any sense in the ’spin’ of this article. She might as well go out and say:
“vote BNP - they’re a credible force”.
107. Nick P if your proposal was put into law it would lead to an avalanche of court cases against the political parties and put those in charge of judging the said cases in an impossible position - how could they avoid being accused of making partisan decisions?
[107] Fair enough - I misread what you wrote. But I’m still far from convinced that political parties, or even the R.S.P.C.A or the Flat Earth Society need the kind of protection you propose.
107. “if they falsely claim in an apparently factual report that (say) the LibDems have proposed to legalise paedophilia, the LibDems can’t complain to the PCC (not an individual), nor can they sue, because no individual is named.”
Nick, I do not think you are a Libel lawyer. Any senior Lib Dem could sue in these circumstances if they could show that other decent folk would think worse of them if they were genuinely afected by the published malicious untruth. The trouble is that most of these types of statements have an (often highly-warped) thread of truth hidden away somewhere, so that the parties concerned do not want the ground trailed over again 18 months later in court. Consequently, most people thus libelled do not sue very often. Mr Galloway, of course is a most notable exception.
110 - Sigh, doesn’t anyone read what I say before disagreeing with it? I’m not talking about court cases or judges, simply about a PCC-like body with the power to require corrections for groups as the PCC already can for individuals. It shouldn’t be any more or less difficult than it is now.
O/T I think this is going to do far more to damage cheap airlines and foreign air travel than a few ‘green taxes’ ever will.
Why the surprise. Brown has always been an incompetent jerk, kept in place purely because he made even Blair look half useful. With Blair going, why would Labour keep Brown on for heaven’s sake. Look at him. He’s completely wrecked after grubbing out his position for ten years against all other pretenders to Blair’s favour. He’s the top courtier sure, but that’ all he ever was - a courtier - and a pretty nasty one too.
113. Sorry, but even if you want to do it that way, the same problem will arise. How can whoever sits on the said body avoid being accused of making partisan political judgements? who will appoint the body? How could it be constituted such that it would not appear to favour certain parties and/or not split along party lines? You haven’t thought this through.
116 - “You haven’t thought this through” - hard to work out why Nick hasn’t risen further in this government
115.
Cherie, why do you call yourself ‘Tapestry’? is it because in your house Carol’s still really king?
97. I tend to agree with A H Matlock re Obama’s chances.
Sorry Ptp at 99. but your own observation is correct. 5/1 is ridiculous about a prospective but uncertain runner for POTUS.
However AHM can have 1,000,000/1 with me re his own prospects,
provided I don’t have to match the bet!
119 I was surprised, StJohn, but Mike’s link to the US polls put it in context.
AHM for POTUS? Can I have 10p on that with you?
120. You can have 1p but you will have to trust me with the bank.
118. I was at Oxford with her but am not her. BTW I’m male, so don;t get too excited.
Nick
I agree that in your example its unfair but I’m to a large extent opposed to the great and good making quasi-judicial decisions - the Lib Dems could protest and make a fuss, and most probably in any of these cases there would somewhere be a named individual able to go to court. Censorship should be open & recognisable - blank columns or “censored” or an open declaration (as in case of the two princes a statement that the press wouldn’t impinge on their privacy while they were minors or in education - upfront declaration of self censorship). I’m biased in favour of due process and against administrative shortcuts.
Nick Palmer The reaction to your post on the press tells you something significant about how trusted the Labour party has become, don’t you think?
Nick Palmer The reaction to your post on the press tells you something significant about how trusted the Labour party has become, don’t you think?
121 You know, StJohn, nothing pi**es me of more than a bookie turning a bet back. I’ll have 10p or nothing. How the hell am I supposed to lay off 1p?!
120 - I will accept the nomination only long enough to turn stewardship of the Colonies over to HM the Queen, where it belongs, and thus commence the reunification and rise of the Second British Empire.
124/125 Is there an echo in here, or, heaven forbid, are there two The Masters?
123 - I agree: on separation of powers grounds this kind of redress ought to be a judicial, rather than the quasi-executive agency that Nick is proposing. (Willing to be corrected if I’m misinterpreting the nature of the body he wants.)
127 Sounds a pretty plausible manifesto to me, AHM. Wait till I get my bet on and we can start to discuss fund-raising.
O/T Ptp. Do you think (Portsmouth No.9) KANU’s odds at 33/1 are good to be top goal scorer in the premiership.
106 Thank you a fascinating article, I am surprised ConHome missed it in the newslinks today.
On the press, sick as I am of distortions, I think you let the free market decide.
131 StJohn
33/1?!! That’s ridiculous. So ridiculous that I just stuck a tenner on it. If by tonight I can’t think of a good reason why he shouldn’t win, I’ll have another fourty.
He’s top scorer at the moment, isn’t he? And Portsmouth are playing well?
132. Is all this Labour handwringing re. immigration genuine? Raising the issue constantly without proposing any new restrictions surely only helps the BNP’s cause. I wonder if the real idea is to try to tempt the Conservatives into making some ill-advised initiative, which Labour can then point to as evidence of the ’same old Tories’.
BBC News - Pinochet has croaked.
134. Ptp. You pinched the price! I’ve had £4.00 on him and my dad has had £16.00 on him. Fingers crossed!
137 It’s a nonsense price, isn’t it?
Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Even if he doesn’t do a thing from now on, it’s a great bet.
137 By the way, there’s plenty more available. I reckon 10/1 would be generous enough and there’s a long way to go before it gets that low.
So many ranting Tories. It’s like 1982 all over again except the boot is on the other foot. What does it feel like?
Iain Dale quotes Blunkett: ‘He was overhead at the US Embassy Christmas Party last week opining: “If he wants to win, Gordon has got to get rid of the people around him. People like Douglas Alexander and Alistair Darling otherwise we will be dead in the water”.’
Ho Ho Ho Christmas cheer.
140 Feels like being in the winning team. How about you?
I’m sure we can all join together - for once - in expressing our sadness at General Pinochet’s passing. He was a hard man, certainly, but he was also a judicious and farsighted one: who saved Chile from Communism.
RIP.
142 except so far you have won sfa
Mass summary executions and torture? Not “judicious” in any sense I can recognise, I’m afraid.
43 - Presumably you will be lauding Castro as well. the only credible position is to support or oppose both Pinochet *and* Castro, a dictator is a dictator.
143 LOL, Sean T!
Though your views may not be widely shared, who can fail to appreciate your wit?
146. The only good thing about Pinochet was his anagram. Phonetic. Sounds good. But he wasn’t.
Please confirm that that post was a joke, SeanT?
By the end of the year there might be a moment of unity between fellow-travellers of both persuasions.
“Pinochet/Castro was a hard man, but he made the pensions system/health service run on time, and he saved Chile/Cuba from communism/imperialism”. Delete as appropriate.
143 Deep Irony has been unmasked !!
147 PtP. Missed you at Cheltenham ?? … see 39.
First a Sun leader claiming Brown was duffed up by Osbourne at the PBR, now todays broadside from the Sunday Times. Looks like there may be something interesting in the air.
“Irony’s the ice I keep my dreams in/Drop some in your whisky, leave it there” (from Kate Clanchy’s Samarkand). I found the dreamlike image of Nick P., Roger, and Snowflake all joining in a moment of remembrance for General Pinochet too delicious to resist.
Put it another way: Course it was a bleedin’ joke!
But we will hear substantively that comment from the likes of Norman Lamont…
Good thing I had the champagne on ice
151 You were there, Jack? I checked the Royal Box a couple of times and it appeared to be empty.
Seriously, you should have given me a ring. We could have shared a dram or three…
I take it you enjoyed the racing? Detroit City was very impressive. Maybe it’s an omen. Perhaps 2007 will be DC’s year…!
Phew, Sean! Glad I checked.
Seeing as it is a Sunday, and we’re allowed to be discursive, I reckon that Kate Clanchy poem is worth quoting in full (not least because I slightly misquoted and misattributed it). The poem is actually called “Tip” and its from her first collection, The Slattern (1996). Here it is:
Tip, by Kate Clanchy
Get a hat, a homburg, keep
it on in bars, tipped
so just your profile shows.
Imply a smile, one-sided. Perhaps
a scar to hold it.
Seek out the half light, stand
oblique, a silhouette. Smoke
a blue edged trail
in icy air, by a lamppost, let
your few sharp words intensify
to clouds. Be lean.
Be leaning on the bar I plan
to enter. Irony’s the ice I keep
my dreams in. Drop
some in your whisky. Hold it there.
Truly lovely.
Pinochet was a nasty man whose actions inflicted untold suffering on many decent Chilean families of all backgrounds with many tortured and killed during his regime. The fact he aided Britain in the Falklands and eventually restored democracy is more evidence of regional clashes and public pressure than any restoration of good character. It is a shame that he like so many other dictators of all stripes and none was never made to face up to his actions in court.
RE 102 AHM and 103, Peter the Punter, I don’t think Obama will become POTUS, but there will be plenty of money to be made betting for and against for a deft punter
156 PtP. I got there at 12.10, ten minutes before the first race and bunged a parking attendant £20 for VIP parking !!
It was a decent day’s racing, although the 4 horse big race was a shame. The weather was almost spring like for the first 3 races which made for a great day. I got Peter O’Sullivan to sign his new book and spent a fortune on Xmas prezzies in the tented village !!
I was almost £500 down until the last race and just for a laugh, bearing in mind my RAF lineage, had £100 EW on Flight Leader @ 18/1 ….. and it romped home !
My evening function was also a blast …. and I limped home at 3.30 am. A great day all in all !!
Re 113, Nick Palmer apparently not. However what would be the implications of your proposals on say one party misrepresenting the policies of another party in an election campaign? Or is it only the press?
SeanT “I’m sure we can all join together - for once - in expressing our sadness at General Pinochet’s passing. He was a hard man, certainly, but he was also a judicious and farsighted one: who saved Chile from Communism”
Indeed. As I heard moving commentary by the brother of one of the nine thousand “disappeared” who last saw his sister bundled into a truck by Pinochet’s men before being taken to the football stadium to be tortured and killed I thought to myself how sad it was that we were unlikely to see his like again.
Andrew Turner, The Tory MP for Isle of Wight has suffered a major stroke.
RE 143, SeanT I am no socialist, but as I understand it General Pinochet saved Chile from it’s democraticaly elected government. I can’t see much cause for praising the man for that, nor the manner he retained control.
RE 153, SeanT B*gger! I commented too quick
Re Obama, this article (from the New Hampshire Union Leader) makes interesting reading: http://unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Obama+heads+to+NH&articleId=09d9da71-0d44-4a9c-970d-306ec03d09a1
164 - Do you have any link? Andrew and I were both Councillors together yonks ago, and though our politics were far apart, he is personally a delightful, generous and considerate man. I hope he makes a full recovery.
156. PtP - ‘Jack W’ doesn’t exist.
Benedict. If you think SeanT was being ironic then you havent spent enough time reading his posts. I would have found any other angle from him genuinely surprising. infact the really surprising thing is that he’s now saying he was being ironic. He usually has the courage of his own convictions for far longer than eight posts!
It appears that seanT has a soulmate: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6167351.stm
170 - Their friendship is no secret, tpfkar. Why should she not be saddened by his death?
I pricked up ears soon after Cameron’s election to hear Trevor McKavenagh (spelling?), now let me get this right, editor of the Sun? or political editor? sounding positive about Cameron.
I read a textbook on the media’s influence in politics, that states that, at that time, no academic research had been able to detect an influence of the media on politics - as distinct from a connection between what the media says and what the public think, or an influence of public opinion on the media. Correlation cannot by itself prove cause and all that.
Nevertheless I find it difficult to believe that the media has no influence on politics (in terms of swing in party preference or views of a given policy). Perhaps it’s hard to devise a methodology that detects it. Can spin doctors really be irrelevant to party fortunes?
It seems to me that if Murduch goes Tory, he’ll take at least a couple of percent with him that wouldn’t have gone otherwise.
Incidentally, that photo of Gordon makes him look a lot less leaderlike than often. I’ve seen a lot of unflattering photos of him recently. I wonder if he’s okay? Didn’t he recently have a child diagnosed with a terrible degenerative disease? I hope he’s coping okay.
Thatcher grieving for Pinochet shouldn’t surprise anyone. I always thought she lost her marbles when in office but they’re obviously well gone by now.
Where’s Rik?
167. John
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6166345.stm
Lady Thatcher is easily our greatest peacetime Prime Minister of the last century and possibly ever, and there is no living politician in any country that I admire more.
However, nobody is perfect, and her judgement is at fault on Pinochet. Torture is an absolute wrong and can never be condoned in any circumstance.
Re. Pinochet - a violent man certainly, but many in Chile nevertheless see him as a great man.
For a UK example perhaps we might consider Cromwell. There is a statue of him outside Westminster and he retains a considerable ‘fan club’ today, especially among those inclined to the political left.
Yet a glance at his record reveals him to have presided over - summary executions, massacres of civilians, the judicial murder of the Head of State, the forcible dissolution of legally elected parliaments, arbitrary taxation, and the imposition of military government on the British Isles.
A great man, but also an exceedingly violent one who believed entirely in the maxim ‘the ends justify the means’. Do those who condemn Pinochet also believe Cromwell’s statue should be removed? If not, why not?
That’s interesting analysis from Nick P up top. It’s such a pity the press don’t even bother being accurate.
As to your suggestion, journalists are obviously better journalists than politicians so party answers will never be as readable. Still I suppose that would be the punishment.
I’ve often wondered whether we could somehow have readers elect someone to determine the editorial line. It would be nice to reduce the influence of advertisers too, so for instance we could have some more anti-car coverage. Then again perhaps there’s a case for all major media outlets to be required to be neutral in some sense, like the broadcasters?
171,173: I didn’t say I was surprised! Given how respectful most people are after hearing that anyone has passed away, I’m struck by how rare it is to read of such a cold reaction as today’s, SeanT and MaggieT excepted.
Perhaps Murdoch is unhappy at Gordon Brown cuts in the Defence budget?
RE 181, Jeremy that was the line in the Sun last week.
177 - Ironic that the principle of “the ends justifying the means” led to a regime so hated that the end (a republic) collapsed within a couple of years of his death.
I can’t say the statue particularly works me up though, not 350 years later.
161 Jack W
£100 ew on Flight Leader?!! I think you should take over the job of PB Tipster-in-Chief.
Don’t mind small fields myself, if they are quality. The two ‘rags’ in that race were both once considered Champion Hurdle contenders. The match is the origin of modern racing and DC v HE was a minor classic of its type. I’m not sure they will finish in the same order in March. DC won’t be getting 4lb then and it will be a very different type of race. We’ll see.
Glad you enjoyed the day.
Cromwell was a murderer and a usurper. Pull the statue down by all means - I’ll help!
RE 185, AHM, here here!
THere’s a poor Tory MP for the Isle of Wight in Hospital after a stroke or something, poor man. I know you people will be interested, no doubt out of concern.
182. The end wasn’t really a republic as such. The end was rule by the ‘godly’ - the religious dimension tends to be glossed over these days, as a modern audience finds it very hard to conceive of people taking religion as seriously as Cromwell and his ilk did.
I think referring to the elapse of time is really avoiding the question. Cromwell, given his record, should surely be condemned as a violent dictator in exactly the way Pinochet is. But generally, he is not. This in the end I fear boils down largely to political partisanship. Pinochet is a hate figure for the left because he persecuted left wingers, Cromwell is often highly regarded because he persecuted (among others) Royalists.
160 Benedict - I’m sure you are right about the opportunities provided for a deft punter. I just hope this daft one can exploit them too.
Interesting article Stephen Tall referred to. He may not win - he may not even stand - but looks like he’s a serious contender.
186 - Time to gear up the Lib Dem by-election machine eh, Gavin?
187. If you’re Cornish, Cromwell was a dude - he put an end to the slaving of Cornish people by Barbary pirates (i.e. Muslims from north Africa) - by the simple expedient of duffing the Africans up.
Clearly (pace Roger) I was being ironic about Pinochet, he seems to epitomise a deeply unhappy period in Chile’s history, and I leave it to the Chileans to bury him, or praise him, as they see fit.
But I do delight in the girlie histrionics of lefties about Pinochet (again, cf Roger) when they fall so quiet about Castro, or even Mao (a far far greater criminal than Pinochet could ever have been).
Hence my little joke.
189. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lord Rennard was already on his way sadly.
186. Where did you get this from.
190. His remarkable military ability is something historians of all persuasions can agree on. Naturally though if you were on the receiving end of it, that might colour your attitude to the man a little.
October, Arthur Seldon. November, Milton Friedman. December, Augusto Pinochet. Soon the whole sorry crew will be gone.
Ref 189. Should be 191.
Jaysus children….conspiracy theories abound on Murdoch. While I do not deny the poer that his newspapers in particular could have ion trying to influence public opinion, lest we forget the following. He has a large set of businesses to run and doesnt have the bloody time, day to day, to order his minions cook up ever shifting articles because Gordon may nto be doing what he wants or Cameron may not be doing what he wants and so on.
As someone pointed out, Murdoch’s papers tend to swing with the wind. They pick winners, particularly his main organ, The Sun. It’s obvious they are in a holding pattern. For example, it was the Sun that got the big ‘my son has cystic fibrosis’ story but on the other, their political bloke, Trevor Kavanagh has been regularly sticking the boot into Brown.
PtP I believe the 2007 Champion hurdle winner is named after a large US city…
193 - Where do I get what from?
195. How charming that you delights in the deaths of others, including a Nobel laureate economist. How typically leftwing of you.
No socialists on PBC
Please try to avoid the word SoCIALISt on the site because your comment will get caught in the spam filter. At the heart of the word is CIALIS which is a competitor for Viagra and the subject of much of our spam. It is said to have the same effect as Viagra but can last up to three days.
200. Classic!!!!!
Apparently Councillor Bob Piper has been caught up in a racism row! he has been mentioned on the BBC TV.
*cough* needless to say you can read the most significant angle on my blog
197 …Huh? George Washington is going to win the Champion Hurdle??!!
Ibicenco @ 74 & Mark D @ 77: Nick Cohen may have cribbed his entire piece (I haven’t read it); Frank Luntz may be an excellent adviser (He certainly seems to be doing OK so far). But Deborah Mattinson’s comments (not solely on Luntz) are intelligent and reasonable, whatever her motive; and to say “She wasn’t advertising her status when she appeared in the Times” is wrong: she mentions her Labour attachment in the first sentence and elaborates on it in the rest of the first paragraph. Forgive the implied slight, but have you read the piece from beginning to end?
Re 190, Peter I did not get to read that article but he is certainly some one to watch.
200 Socializm clearly has staying power
Re 203, yeah peter, with teh aid of a rocket. The coffin is heavy.
Re 200, Mike I am pleased to hear it! Dirty little lefties should have ben banned years age
[208] You just wait till the dirty great big ones get their paws on your bl*g …
198 was referring to 186’s story about the Tory MP. I haven’t seen anything.
210. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6166345.stm
My 208 should have finished ago! fat finger silly finger syndrome
re 209, Innocent Abroad, we will have to see
Mind you I had some pratt turn up, spend 10 minutes reading it, only to make a nasty comment so badly you could only just make out what he meant. If he did not like it he could have moved on to anothe blog!
Zara Phillips? Not my choice, I’ve got to say, I’d have lost a few pounds if I’d been betting on that. (Although may have got on Beth Tweddle for top three)
213 = Images of HM at Buck House frantically pressing redial went through my head.
RE 213 and 214, What? I seem to have missed what you were replying to?
ukpaul: best post of the day lol!
Benedict - sports personality of the year.
189 - but I don’t see the left, by and large, calling for statues of various monarchs to be pulled down despite deeds which were pretty unsavoury.
Accept your comments about the nature of the “end” - though the rule of the Merry Monarch would have to be put down as as much of a defeat for “godliness” as it was for republicanism.
Re 216, tpfkar Really? You jets surely? I had not realised I had been nominated!
Andrea,
are you around? Who has been selected in Finchley?
213 - absolutely disgusted with the whole Beeb setup tonight, showing the cricket last, half of a pathetically short piece on Monty not being in the team for the last 2 tests, talk about doing everything possible to avoid the embarassment of having to interview him on winning it! No mention of the India or Sri Lanka series or test match / ODI dichotomy or injuries to Vaughan / Simon Jones etc - totally shallow.
I hate to sound like an old man but Sports Personality was so much better 15/20 years ago when growing up, it’s just such rubbish spin and drivel, image over substance.
Rant over!
What’s wrong with Socialists?
220 - Monty couldn’t win it, he’s still in bed!!
221 Nothing…but would you want your daughter to marry one?
222 - where was Flintoff when he won it last year - in India at c2.30am in the morning - they did it for him!!
224 - the difference was that everyone knew that Flintoff (and the England team were going to win) - so Fletcher grudgingly let them stay up for it. I think it a bit unlikely that Monty would have bothered.
Don’t watch it anymore though, used to be the highlight of the year - the whole thing’s just an embarrassment these days, and just a reminder of how little sport the BBC actually covers.
Amusing to see the knee jerk anti-Pinochet brigade in full howl. They just can’t accept that the great man saved Chile (and possibly Latin America) from decades of Communist evil. There are dozens of dictators and ex-dictators still living around the world who (a) killed far, far more people, (b) screwed up their economies (Pinochet massively strengthened his), (c) didn’t re-establish democracy and hand over power (unlike Pinochet). Yet they don’t attract even a small percentage of the outrage over Pinochet. Why?
The answer is that General Augusto Pinochet smashed a marxist fantasy and stopped the Soviets in their evil, scheming tracks - and for that he can never be forgiven. Ignore the whining and selective indignation. Mourn a hero and a patriot.
Augusto Pinochet RIP
213 Embarrassing, isn’t it? Proper sportsmen like Joe Calzaghe lose out to a ‘name’ whilst an exemplary professional like AP McCoy doesn’t even get into the final list.
223 - Depends if he needs the assistance of Cialis i suppose…
Glad you feel the same way as me about the program.
Another thing - I’ve never known them before have the sports action piece, ie Beth Tweddel tonight, showcasing the talents of 1 of the 10 up for the main award!! I’m not belittling her talents, but thought it was disgraceful hyping her up far more than any of the other contenders - it’s things like that that just get me so angry with the Beeb sometimes!
The ultimate low actually came last year when Sue Barker was reduced to making a ‘blue’ joke on air, and even spoiled the punchline.
Commentator, I’m around, but I don’t have the info requested. Actually I hoped you could have got it (considering you were the one who managed to find the shortlist).
RE 227 PTP: The problem is that the general British public (including myself to a degree) think both boxing and horse racing are corrupt and are sports run particulary in the case of horse racing for the benefit of gamblers rather than general sports fans. In terms of boxing as well, virtually all of it is on PPV so the general public has probably hardly ever seen Calzaghe box.
230 - yep, forgot about that one. Surprised that Mr Henson chose to lie low over it.
232 - Calzaghe fights are usually on ITV, who have re-entered boxing in quite a big way in recent years.
229 - Tweddle, not Tweddel!
231, it was on the ConHome newslinks. I thought maybe the Finchley local paper would have it and that is beyond my googling skills.
236. I think it was tonight. So I would expect the local paper to have it tomorrow (local papers don’t usually update their websites so soon). I suppose ConHome will have it sooner or later!
The Daily Mail reports: Now Labour ‘will tax your parking spaces’
In it, it claims that parking spaces whether or not you have a car will be subject to additional tax. It also claims that even a rabbit hutch will incur an extra tax as will extra bedrooms and living in “a nice area”.
The way things are going, it’ll be us that live in rabbit hutches as Nu-Labour imports more and more labour to keep wages down and allow it to continue inflating money at 14%.
Previously, Nu-Labour have:
put a bus lane on the outside lane of the M4 with both Prescott and Straw breaking their own law and driving on it just to take the p***,
raised fuel duty to almost 70%,
imposed a “congestion charge” in London even though Red Ken is not allowed to raise taxes and the motorist has already paid Vehicle Excise Duty (of which only 1/5th goes towards the roads). The US ambassador corretly ointed out that he is not subject to UK TAXES and refused to pay,
imposed daft parking fines should you park more than 6″ from the kerb,
imposed daft penalties for minor infringements such as entering a box-junction when the way ahead wasn’t clear (an easy mistake to make),
told traffic wardens to show “no discretion” such that Michael Havers was fined when he stopped to let his wife be sick (she has cancer), a motorcyclist was fined for parking even as he was being loaded into an ambulance, a Londoner woke up to find his car towed away and fresh double yellows painted where there were none before.
Despite the recent “green” increase in fuel duty for airlines, that tax is imposed on the passengers, the airline still gets a SUBSIDY. A university report also found that even when trains are full, they’re still less efficient than a car and buses are just as bad sriving around with virtually no passengers in some places.
DEATH TO LABOUR
Andrea - FYI, Mike Freer (leader of Barnet Council, gay) beat Vanessa Gearson (ex-Cheltenham candidate, Betsygate participant).
227. Have to agree with you as usual Ptp. My pocket is hurting re Joe Calzaghe. But the real unappreciated hero, as you say, is Tony McCoy. And ironically the second NH hero who deserved the title more than any of tonight’s contestants, Richard Johnson, was of course the winner’s ex beau.
To be fair to the winner, she knows that the great sporting heroes of our time are the NH jockeys.
Nuff said.
232 Interesting, Andrew M, and worthy of a longer response than I could give here.
The public perception of both sports depends to a large extent on media coverage. The BBC used to cover both sports well. It hardly touches boxing now and its racing coverage has declined rapidly in recent years. However, whilst boxing is indeed confined largely to PPV, racing is very well served by Channel 4.
Both sports have a long been associated - in fact as well as in the public mind - with corruption of various kinds. In boxing, I should say it has reached the level where it is hard to take the sport seriously, though performers of great skill and integrity somehow still seem to survive. Racing however has in recent years increased its efforts to tackle the problem. The paradoxical result is that whilst the sport is probably cleaner than it has ever been, the number of high profile cases hitting the headlines has never been greater.
I boxed as a boy and have a natural love of the sport. I have little hope for its future. I am much more hopeful for racing.
239. Thanks. So did VG come second?
238 - politics of the M4 bus lane were fascinating. Green agenda etc was the spin put on it, but the real point was to get the traffic flowing better. All the traffic gets into the inside lane to get off on the A312 at junction 3 (a major route in west London), leaving the non-bus traffic carrying on into London already sorted out into effectively a dual carriageway, a few miles before it actually does go down to 2 lanes at the end of the bus lane. It was just a convenient presentational device to cover up the real point! Typical NuLabour for you.
239 thank you were they the last two in the final?
244 - IDS will be pleased!! Where is VG going for next?
240 StJohn
As a racing fan, you will need no reminding of Richard Johnson’s skills in the saddle. Even his greatest admirers however acknowledge that he is not at his best when waiting tactics are required and at times he is guilty of getting there too soon.
Rumour has it that the demise of his relationship with Zara was attributable to a similar shortcoming.
244. The selection of a man stops a series of 5 women in a row selected (I suppose Maude was in heaven!
)
246. As usual Peter you are better informed than me.
All I will say is that he appears to be a really nice, but shy guy who gives his all and that she should have stuck with him. I suspect “Her Maj” would have approved!
246. With side splitters like that, Peter, you should perhaps be presenting ‘Sports Personality’ next year…
Gearson was runner up. Hendon next for her, I suspect.
As for IDS, he’s too busy removing his foot from his mouth to pay much attention.
250. Thanks Anti-Totalitarian. Was the vote close?
“removing his foot from his mouth”…I had a disturbing mental picture of IDS with his foot in his mouth
185 PtP. Pure luck ! I might just have backed Air Force One instead, that came nowhere. I was almost £500 down and thought I might just as well make it £700 down and then ended up almost £2K up !!
Thank god Darren Clarke didnt win it, he really didnt want to.
203, smart arse……
241. Boxing will be fine because its now having to get its act together after years of milking the global public with useless heavyweight fights where two fat blokes plod around whilst the genuine superstars and excitement are elsewhere. For its part, ITV got lucky that its had its fair share of storming fights and its getting good audiences so will copntinue its recent flirtation with the sport. Mixed Martial Arts is giving boxing a hard time at the moment but its at its peak and will taper off. Next year should see some superstar fights such as Del a Hoya & Mayweather etc, Britain will see the continued rise of Enzo Macranelli & Khan. The next few years look bright in a global and UK context.
246. Mick Fitzgerald..if i had ever owned a jump horse he would have been the jockey i’d have wanted, a really natural horseman but sadly retiring.
220..so was Christmas…..
252 - did you drop in at the Spooks HQ too?
252 I dunno Jack, what chance has the Poor Bloody Infantry got?
Pleased for you anyway. Honest.
253. Yokel. Yes super chap. He can talk for Ireland.
I’m sure you remember his quote after winning the Grand National on Rough Quest! They are hard as nails these Jump jockeys and have earned and deserve are respect.
I didn’t realise he was due to retire. I knew that he had returned to jump racing after an operation to repair his broken neck, which to me says it all abot these incredible unshone heroes.
256 PtP. It’s not all beer and skittles you know …. I lost almost £10k at Ascot one year !!
255 Tabman. Indeed I did …. the Bar Chart Dept is vast !!!!
256..10k? What drinks were you buying?
259…Make that 258……….
257. The guy is due a great career either in training or in punditry.
259 Yokel. There is only one drink !
259…Pint of McEwans then…….
Right my ability to successsfully read post numbers is very low at the moment, I’ve obviously had too many pints of something myself…
262 Yokel. No … Iron Bru and Bollinger …
Jack W, I am truly astonished!
Somebody of 102 is in no need of my advice but I can’t help thinking that anybody who bets in those amounts ought to be basing his selections on something a bit more reliable than favorite names!
264….Now theres an idea…..interesting entry in the ready mixed drink market..though my last idea of carbonated Bovril in a can didnt exactly take the market by storm….
Jack W.
While you are at the bar can you get me a pint of Marston’s
Pedigree?
There must be a mole in Cowley St …. the “Stealth” chart must now be classed as compromised …
265 PtP. No … 103, 104 in January !!
You’ll be glad to hear my nag betting is normally more form based !! ….. although my best win was a Cheltenham Festival winner many moons ago - Winnie the Witch @ 40/1 …. backed because Mrs Jack W had the night before been reading childrens stories to a young relative.
269 “… backed because Mrs Jack W had the night before been reading childrens stories to a young relative.”
That’s the trouble with Timeform; just doesn’t give you that kind of information.
I sincerely hope (and believe) that 226 was an ironic spoof, just as SeanT was. The spontaneous rejoicing of all decent progressive people at the death Pinochet is qualified only by regret that he was never brought to justice for the thousands of people who were murdered or tortured in his name. It is ironic that only now we are now seeing the resurrection, in many Latin American countries, of democratic left-wing governments of the type that he so brutally overthrew in 1973.
269 - Jack, do you have time for such frivolities, given the requirements of maintaining your secret HQ under the volcano? Besides I thought you tended to bet on politics rather than nags!!!
270…No Peter but Racing & Football Outlook does apparently…………
272 Tabman. I tend to avoid the nags, but for the larger meetings where the scope for a decent punt and upsets appear greater …. and who could avoid the punting expertize of the good lady when child storytelling at Festival meetings !!
270 PtP.
G’Nite all …. Zzzzzzzzzzzz
re 238. imposed daft penalties for minor infringements such as entering a box-junction when the way ahead wasn’t clear (an easy mistake to make)
This is not an easy mistake to make if you can’t see a space the other side to move into then it’s not clear and if you ask me fining them is far too namby pampby.
271. JohnLoony, if your name - and post - isn’t an apt spoof in itself, then it should be remembered that Allende wasn’t quite the saint every Euro-lefty would like him to be.
“A new book on Allende’s 1933 doctoral dissertation, which has been kept secret until now, reveals that Allende believed that Jews had a disposition to crime. Allende’s disseration also calls for compulsory sterilisation of the mentally ill and alcoholics.
On the Jews, Allende wrote: “The Hebrews are characterised by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, slander and above all usury. These facts permits the supposition that race plays a role in crime.”
Among the Arabs, he wrote, were some industrious tribes but “most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft”.
“The southern Italians - in contrast to the north Italians - and the Spanish have a tendency to barbaric and primitive crimes of passion and are emotionally unpredictable.”
The book’s Chilean-born author Victor Farias said he had evidence that Allende tried to turn his ideas into reality as Chile’s health minister from 1939 to 1941.
Only determined opposition from medical associations prevented him introducing a compulsory sterilisation programme harsher than that in Nazi Germany, said Farias.
The Allende family accused Farias of “manipulating documents”.
Supporters said such views were common in the 1930s, and insist he should be judged on his political record, not early writings.”
Pinochet’s own crimes seem fairly indisputable to me. But was it so wrong to overthrow Allende? Allende was a racist, anti-Semitic communist, at a time when communism was the sworn and mortal enemy of western freedom. So he was deposed? Good.
199. Sean, does your respect for Nobel prize winners extend to the latest British recipient of the literature gong?
277. I think Harold Pinter is an idiot and sometimes a w*nker, politically. I think he is - or was - a brilliant playwright, and an excellent screenwriter.
But even if I hated everything about Pinter, I would never celebrate his death, the way you disgustingly celebrate the deaths of Seldon and Friedman.
278 - SeanT I am with you totally. Many British servicemen probably owe their lives to the assistance PInochet gave the UK during the Falklands war. He also reformed the economy to make it the success it has become and removed Allende’s stupid Marxist thinking from the Govt of Chile.
He is far from “one of the most brutal dictators” that the BBC called him tonight. Many many others would be ahead of him in that queue.
And finally he handed to over to what has become a successful democracy. I wonder if Mugabe or the rulers of Burma could boast the same!?
278. Just noting the congruence, no celebration on my part Sean.
280. Kevin, you claim there was “no celebration on your part” of these deaths, but I shall have to refer you to your original remark. Sorry if this makes you blush, but this is what you said:
“October, Arthur Seldon. November, Milton Friedman. December, Augusto Pinochet. Soon the whole sorry crew will be gone.”
I think I am not alone in detecting a fairly repellent tone of celebration in this comment.
Arthur Seldon was a Jewish immigrant, orphaned at the age of 3, who went on to make an immeasurable contribution to British economic thinking and the post-socialist revitalisation of the country. RIP.
It’s comments like yours that remind people how brutally unpleasant and rancidly immature the British Left can be.
280. Kevin, you claim there was “no celebration on your part” of these deaths, but I shall have to refer you to your original remark. Sorry if this makes you blush, but this is what you said:
“October, Arthur Seldon. November, Milton Friedman. December, Augusto Pinochet. Soon the whole sorry crew will be gone.”
I think I am not alone in detecting a fairly repellent tone of celebration in this comment.
Arthur Seldon was a Jewish immigrant, orphaned at the age of 3, who went on to make an immeasurable contribution to British economic thinking and the post-social1st revitalisation of the country. RIP.
It’s comments like yours that remind people how unpleasant and immature the British Left can be.
276. My message was certainly not a spoof. My name is not a spoof either; it is an accurate and factual amalgamation of my name (John) and my politics (OMRLP).
Meanwhile, in that oasis of popular democracy:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2714930
281,Regardless of politics/religion whatever,can you hand,on heart state that never,never in your life,upon the news of someone’s passing away,you have never said or thought ‘Good riddance!’-just a question,mate,with no politics involved!
Cromwell’s troops would split the noses of the Welsh soldiers’s wives. They thought the strange Welsh language to be foreign and therefore of mercenaries. Cromwell’s record in Ireland is no better.
Pinochet wouldnt worry too much about being hated. Such people probably admire the likes of Stalin, Castro & Chavez.
Pinochet’s legacy: Chile is the most stable country in South America. No small feat.
A bit like Flt Lt Rawlings of Ghana…
285,Great Briatin’s involvement in Ireland over however-many-hundred-years is appalling-frankly we deserved everything the IRA threw at us-and probably more
Wow 279 - Rik Willis prefers Pinochet to Edward Heath…
286 - Oh I see we’re back to saluting the IRA. are we? Perhaps, when you’re sober you might reflect on the sheer wickedness of that comment.
288,I am off to bed ,but suffice it to say that I will only enter dialogue on the Anglo-Irish question with:
(a)Both parties being granted equal respect as entities
(b)An acceptance that ancient colonialism died 200 years ago globally
Without pressing the point;
(a)The Famine of 1846
(b)The colonial put-down of the 1916 Uprising
(c)Bloody Sunday 30th January 1972 are scarcely the proudest moments in Britain’s history,are they?!
What’s done is done,I soeak in the past tense when I made my remark.For pity’s sake,lets move on
288/289,I am pretty sober BTW-and have heard enough anti-Irish filth,venom to last two lifetimes-perhaps when Gordon Brown is PM he will pass draconian laws that make anti-Irish prejudice punishable by law,with a high level of severity
I see the Next Chancellor market remains one of the most difficult markets out there, given the Sunday Times article tipping Darling today - which looked well-sourced, and reverses equally ‘inside’ looking articles of the last couple of months.
It also appeared to suggest Energy might get its own department. If Darling becomes Chancellor in an unchanged Treasury (ST article appeared to - albeit mildly - quash the Treasury split theory) and Energy isn’t merged with DEFRA, Miliband is left somewhat high and dry. Could he then get be a threat to Brown?
In a wider context, GB appears to be applying the clunking first to his prospective Cabinet already - which doesn’t bode well for unity looking ahead.
btw. 286 is a dreadful comment.
292. Agreed and so are 289 and 290.
No one wants to see anti-Irish prejudice. Comments like those help it to happen.
Interesting move on 2007Q3 on Blair Switch, alongside Miliband tightening as next leader (not spectacular but into 44/1 is worth thinking about). Any chance Blair has decided to stretch the timetable to let a serious challenger build up some momentum?
I didn’t even understand comments 285-291. I just presumed the authors were drunk. I kind of hope they were.
Going right back to Nick’s first post:
One reason why a right of reply wouldn’t work can be seen in G.E.R. Gedye’s excellent book, Fallen Bastions , an excellent work on inter-war Austria and Czechoslovakia and their capture by the Nazis (although rather too lenient towards the Communists and the USSR).
In it, he describes how, in 1920s Austria before it became an authoritarian state, all papers had to publish a right of reply when anybody complained about an article which personally attacked them. When the victim exercised this right, the paper would comply with law and print it, but then bait the victim by adding a coda along the lines of “We all know what to make of this detestable pack of lies by the loathsome Herr X….”, thus leading to another right of reply; and so on until the victim got tired of it.
Rik, Stalin was on our side in WWII…
286 - yes, the drinkers at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town had an appalling human rights record in Ireland
Re. 288 and 298, agree entirely. My Grandad would agree - and he’s Irish. And yes, apart from being morally wrong, the IRA’s actions enormously inflamed anti-Irish prejudice (as my Grandad knows from having had IRA scrawled next to his name at work after the Birmingham Pub bombings).
If you go down this road, ‘But our actions are in revenge for historic wrongs’, you end up with Serb nationalists saying it was quite alright to kill the ethnic Albanians, Bosnian Muslims or Croats because of 1389, the Ustashe, or the SS Handchar division. Or you end up with Loyalist paramilitaries pointing out that their own ancestors were in Ireland before St Patrick (before leaving for Scotland). Or Israel might fancy invading France in revenge for the Vichy regime’s collaboration with the Nazis in deporting Jews to the concentration camps.
Bloody Sunday was unjustified (and there’s little doubt it was a major recruiting boost for PIRA). But does it justify atrocities like Bloody Friday or the Le Mon restaurant bombing? You must be joking.
The Yuglosav references are slightly out of sync - strictly speaking it should read ‘because of 1389, the SS Handchar division, or the Ustashe’.