Is Jackie right? Labour could be reduced to 120 seats?
November 9th, 2009
“….Some Labour people may think I’m sounding too gloomy, but those who have been privy to recent private polling are a lot more than gloomy. This suggests that Labour could return to the Commons with just 120 MPs or thereabouts, taking the party back to 1930s territory...”
Jackie Ashley’s Guardian column today - HatTip ConHome
Mike Smithson
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First ?
No - it’s reverse psychology to shore up the core vote so that when they get 160 seats it can be spun as a triumph.
I’m beginning to think that Labour deliberately got 418 seats in 1997 (and the Conservatives got 165) as a cunning plan to make it look relatively less impressive when the Conservative Party “only” gets 410 seats next year (and Labour “manages” to get 170).
Go fourth and multiply!
573,011,894 x 39,893,743 = 22,859,589,235,179,242.
It seems to mean that Jackie cannot be bothered to run the numbers herself but she has spoken to someone who wants Brown out and Miliband in.
Labour COULD be reduced to 120 Seats.In bookie speak that is a rough 16-1 chance and some of those have been known to win now and again.
I do like a ‘biggun’ but this one is not for me.My theery (Monty Python voice) is that the Tories will do comparatively best when it looks worst for them.
In other words if the final polling figures narrowly suggest a Hung Parliament then the Tories will storm home with a Majority.
Where a huge landslide is expected I don’t expect the same effect.
This 16-1 shot requires a perfect storm and then some.In the end,the most abject core vote strategy should see Labour easily top the 120 Seat mark.
……more like a 22-1 shot in bookie speak rather than a 16-1 chance.My bad !
On the admittedly quiet Party Seats Line on Betfair, Labour steadfastly remain above 200.
This is an error in my view and quite a large error if you think that Gordon Brown is going to contest.
All my small investigations lead me to believe that a sub 200 total is more likely than not.
I award Labour 194 Seats only.
No.
Jackie Ashley is part of the ‘Brown must go’ tendency and her unproven assertions must be seen in that light.
Does Alice Miles of the Times share Jackie’s desire?
120 seats is still 118 more than they deserve.
(I will except Frank Field and, for his postings here, NPMP).
I hope so!
What seats would that imply losing?
110- What about Kate Hoey?
13- Err that should be 11 not 110!
Its the same with the labor party in Australia - the public hatred towards them is tangible despite what opinion polls may say.
http://www.twawki.wordpress.com
The Perfect Storm would require Skipper Brown to be at the helm,Labour to poll worse than the Lib Dems and for the SNP and Plaid both to play blinders.
OT- Gold is currently trading around the $1100 level by the way…
There was a short piece in The Times suggesting that Labour are having trouble paying for a GE campaign:
“Labour’s banks have imposed a recruitment freeze on head office, and the party is operating just 20 of the 80 telephone lines it usually runs at its call centre in the months leading up to an election.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6908003.ece
Just for the record, here are some vote shares which, Baxtered, give Labour about 120 seats:
(C-L-LD)
45-20-27
48-21-24
50-23-22
55-28-12
Of course, given these swings, UNS would probably break down. It strikes me that those numbers, while not entirely impossible, are at the outer edge of probabilities, much as I would like to see Labour reduced to a tiny rump.
Of course, there is a warning in that 1935 was the last time the Socialists did anything like that badly, and they came storming back ten years later …
Ashley’s article is interesting, not least in that she displays her usual prejudices. 120 seats, or anywhere near that, would be sensational.
About a year ago I remember wondering if the news cycles could continue to be so drip drip bad for Labour and so far, a year on, that seems to be the case. Maybe 120 seats is too low but maybe less than 200 is realistic especially with so many places for the ex-Labour voter to go (Green, BNP, UKIP, SNP, Lib Dem etc and including staying at home).
18 PSJ.All those examples show NATS and OTHERS with far too small a share.
Try giving them 12% ie making the Big3 share add up to 88% or very adjacent.
FPT 393 “Issoti Simbt [ = "It says so on the internet, so it must be true"]”
Class name.
@@@
Petraeus: Great man who, along with Crocker, could i think have created a stable permanent settlement from the neo-con disaster they inherited. However the powers that be in Washington don’t want a stable permanent settlement imo, what they want is a government that is semi-stable but needs US support and bases to survive. Hence Iraq will carry on being a, not quite as bad as it was, running sore which will eventually taint the General. Still a great man though.
Palin: I think after Letterman got away with making sexual comments about her young daughter she realised there were no limits even with her kids and so backed into a less high-profile bunker where she’s been taking very accurate and damaging sniper shots from long range. Clever woman with supremely good instincts imo - defo a potential Reagan if the PC media didn’t hate her so much - but they do so…
My guess is Palin (5%) or Palin’s endorsement(95%) will be a decisive factor in whoever gets the Rep nomination in 2012.
Also: Jeb Bush has a very amiable face.
I can’t get VIPA to work on my computer for some reason, but it would seem that a 13-point Tory lead translates into the Socialists on 160 seats, so maybe the 17-lead we’ve being seeing recently would translate into 120 seats? Are Labour using, or endorsing by implication, Robert S’s model?
URW - those vote share are all fairly ridiculous - I’m not going to be realistic for one party (or set of parties) and unrealistic for the others.
No. The number of seats which will never be anything but Labour is larger than the Tory equivalent and demographic change will have increased that, if anything.
VIPA is very extreme but a nod in the right direction imho.I would describe myself as ‘VIPA-lite’.
Your point at 5.56am is a very valid one,PSJ.I think Labour VIPA’d the 2007 polls if that’s any help ?
It would be very interesting to know what those private polls revealed. I can envisage two scenarios.
1. Labour voters sitting on their hands, so giving Labour a low turn-out which combines with a high turn=out for the get GB out brigade. This could give the Comservatives a near 50% figure with Labour towards 20%.e.g. 48/21/20
2. Labour voters giving protest votes for the minor parties, as well as SNP. e.g. 45/20/20
Financier. I punched 45-20-20 into Wells and it came out LAB 137 if I recall correctly.
This is an error because Wells tragically underestimates the Seats for NATS and OTHERS.
27 URW
Try using the regional prediction on Baxter, but all of them are not very good at large departures from the UNS.
“Labour could be reduced to 120 seats?”
All depends on “others”. Seems to me it’s just possible you could see seats change hands on unusually low percentages of the vote because the previously Labour vote is split so much in so many different directions and so many stay at home e.g situations like:
28/26/26/20(assorted others).
There may well be some exageration to encourage a McDoom de-coronation but the possibility of a huge vote-strike is definitely there. Then again the Tories may get cocky and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
28 Financier.Yup ! I am aware of that manoeuvre but it makes my point for me.
If you punch 45-20-20 into Wells it gives ALL OTHERS as 12 Seats.
Both Baxter and Wells know this is wrong and Baxter demonstrates this as you say.
At 45-20-20 the figure for Nats+OTHERS is more like 24 Seats rather than 12.
The Ashley article is a final desperate attempt to scare Labour MPs into dumping The Gord. But the MPs won’t do it - and Ashley’s Nightmare Scenario is absurdly unlikely, anyway.
I do now, for the first time, think it possible Labour will go under 200, maybe even 180, but a total of 120 would see them losing majorities of (I’m guessing here) - 15,000+ across the country.
Nah.
By the way I write this from Paradise, aka Shangri-la, aka Xiengililla high up on the Yunnan-Tibetan border. The Chinese-Tibetan hilltribe girls are unbelievably beautiful. Maybe they are angels.
Othe ‘Will he stay or will he go ?’ topic,I have to alert the forum that Brown staying is firming up all the time.
Current betting suggests that he is a sound 72% chance to stay.
BTW Ashely tells the most revolting and ginormous whopper in her article. She says:
“Labour did their referendum U-turn first”
As if the actions of the two parties on the Treaty were equivalent.
Message for you, Mrs pug ugly cuckold of Alice Miles, with your face like a melted rubber boot, what Labour did was this: promise us a referendum in a manifesto, then deliberately and blatantly break that solemn promise - and then lie about it, saying the Treaty was different to the Constitution.
They betrayed us, and then lied about the betrayal.
Cameron, by contrast, was forced to give up his promised referendum as it was politically pointless: the Treaty was ratified. Not least, because of Labour’s treachery.
Equivalent, grrr. Jackie Ashley is a hairy old yak.
SeanT - If Labour’s private polling really does show a Con Maj of 120, though, I don’t think it can be dismissed out of hand. I heard unofficially about the Tory private polling in ‘92 which predicted a Con Maj of 20 when all the polls were saying the Socialists would win. And on the day, as is well known, the result was a Con Maj of 20. So fingers crossed.
I enjoyed Yunan too.
34. She’s not saying the tories will get a majority of 120, she’s saying Labour will return only 120 MPs.
This is extremely unlikely. A 1 in 100 shot, at best.
Where did you go in Yunnan? Did you go to Ruili and the border? Banna?
I’m searching locations for the next thriller. Anywhere you could recommend? I’ve done Kunming, and now I’m on the Tibetan border. It is incredible.
Here’s Wikipedia on the Canadian election in 1993, where the governing party lost all but 2 of their remaining seats:
“The election was called by the new Progressive Conservative Party leader, Prime Minister Kim Campbell, near the end of her party’s five-year mandate. When she assumed office, the party was deeply unpopular, and was further weakened by the emergence of new parties that were competing for its core supporters.”
Situation ring any bells?
I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I’d say the trend since the end of the Cold War has been for bigger swings, as voters become unmoored from their traditional party loyalties. That hurt the Tories in 1997, and the LDP here this year. Add this effect to FPTP, and there’s plenty of scope for a wipe-out.
The 45-20-27 numbers from PSJ’s reverse-Baxtering above are, on current polling, a perfectly plausible outcome. Labour could do several % worse to Others without needing anything insanely surprising to happen.
I’m not saying this is going to happen, but - like a Hung Parliament at the other end of the spectrum - it’s well within the range of reasonable possibilities.
Jackie Ashley really DOES look a bit like a yak, come to think of it.
Here’s a yak:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2007/09/28/jackie_ashley_140×140.jpg
And here’s Jackie “the yak yak” Ashley:
http://zacko.org/moreoftens/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/yak.jpg
“If Labour’s private polling really does show a Con Maj of 120, though, I don’t think it can be dismissed out of hand.”
One caveat on that. I don’t know how this sort of polling is done but if people know it’s for the Labour Party then some people who are still supporters will use it as a way of firing their 100th warning shot like in the Euros.
2 JL
As soon as I saw the headline of the thread, thats exactly what I thought.
It’s not all bad in Labour’s Britain.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8346632.stm
The voles are doing OK. That’s right, the voles.
Puts a whole new gloss on things. Labour, winning the wind in the willows vote.
I’m as big a bear on Labour as anyone, but Labour reduced to 120 seats seems at the outer limit to me. For that to happen, turnout would need to rise substantially, so that the Labour core voters are swamped. Labour will do sufficiently well in Scotland, the north east, the inner cities, south Wales and south Yorkshire to avoid this fate. Its fate will, however, be grim enough.
glasgow north east by election;
60% of households have nobody employed in them and living on benefits.
does anyone really think that anything except a red rosette attached to a monkey can be a winner here after 74 years of one sided contests?
with the daily record, their info to the world suggesting the snp is rrlated to hitler and the devil and anti glasgow whilst the local boy willie can do no wrong. that he works in london 400 miles away and claims to have a degree in law (scots) from university which is frerleevnat to what he teaches needs to be proven even now.
throw in the highest percentage of asylum seekers in scotland pro rata and anything less than a 60% share would be amazing.
the labour policy of saying vote labour to keep tories out is simplistic but it may work at the intellect in this constituency where having big bazookas is the sole reason for an unemployable member of the great unwashed (springburn division) to buy a newspaper each day.
whilst the snp are seen as worth supporting at holyrood the hope for labour faithful is clearly that their vote can keep that nasty tory out, not a problem at holyrood where they ares eena s an irrelevance. the fact their labour benefits saving vote will have no influence whatsover on the election as it will be decided already in england and wales seems to escape them.
I’m gloomy about this. How come Labour can get as many as 120 seats? What do they need to do in order to face total oblivion?
‘Salmond poll blow as voters shun SNP’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/salmond-poll-blow-as-voters-shun-snp-1.931344
44 Stuart
What do you make of it? The 43% undecided is a huge figure!
Lab 39% (n/c), SNP 25% (+7), Con 18% (+2), LD 12% (-11) gives (Baxter):
Lab 42 seats (+2)
LD 7 seats (-4)
SNP 7 seats (+1)
Con 3 seats (+2)
(Speaker (Martin) 0 seats (-1))
4 seats changing hands would be Lib Dem losses:
- Argyll & Bute CON gain
- Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk CON gain
- Inverness, Nairn Badenoch & Strathspey LAB gain
- Dunbartonshire East Lab gain
… and 1 SNP gain from Lab:
- Ochil & South Perthshire
… plus 1 by-election revert:
- Dunfermline & West Fife LAB re-gain
44 — re SNP woes (Stuart Dickson)
Because in Scotland, blaming the government means blaming the SNP, or is it that Scots want SNP rule in Edinburgh but not full independence, or is it just a squeeze?
43. MTF
Contrary to the tone of the Herald’s report, I am absolutely over the moon with this poll!!!
In a bit of a hurry right now (my wife is a tad poorly at the mo), but I can summarise my glee in one word: ‘HOLYROOD’. May the blessings of the haly ruid be upon you my son.
Just pop over here and do some sums:
http://www.scotlandvotes.com/
It is totally remarkable that EXACTLY THE SAME GROUP OF RESPONDENTS put Lab at 39% (n/c) for Westminster v.i. yet put the SNP at 40% (+7) for Holyrood v.i. WHY??? No other poll has ever found such a vast West/Holy discrepancy. So, is this a new trend TNS-BMRB have found, or a rogue?
Note: TNS-BMRB are a member of the British Polling Council, so we ought to have the details by Wed/Thurs.
44: With voting like that….and you think the good people of scotland are mentally able to run their own affairs?
43 “I’m gloomy about this. How come Labour can get as many as 120 seats? What do they need to do in order to face total oblivion?”
Other parties need to take segments of their core vote permanently. This is only likely to happen if they dip below a certain level of seats so i can’t see it happening in one go.
Well, Our Gord told the diversity Select Committee he expected to see between 120 and 140 female Labour MPs after the next GE. So there you have it. The first ever all-female Parliamentary Labour Party.
51 - Harman will be delighted.
51: Hattie will be pleased
Really must go for a wee bit, but one last observation: that 25% for SNP Westminster v.i. is totally in line with recent sub-samples of Great Britain-wide polls, which have tended to have the SNP at approx. 25%. The Lib Dem 12% also “feels” right, for the same reason. IT IS THE LAB (39%) AND CON (18%) FIGURES THAT “FEEL” WRONG! I guess that the TNS fieldworkers hit areas of very weak Con support. In Scotland, Tories (and Lib Dems) tend to be found in “patches”. If you miss their “patches” then you underestimate their level of support.
I’d guesstimate that the “true” Scottish Tory Westminster v.i. is approx 22%. Therefore “true” Lab West. v.i. approx mid-30s, not high-30s.
Can’t see it happening.
54. typo - “recent sub-samples of Great Britain-wide polls, which have tended to have the SNP at approx. 27%“
Also, saw a paper review on Sky. At least two (including the Sun) had Brown not bowing his head on the front page.
Morning all.
Labour returning just 120 MPs is possible, however highly unlikely, still a tad above or below the 200 mark imho. As for Jackie Ashley, I wouldn’t trust her with the whether forecast, she’s been too long a party tool to change her ratchet setting.
Comment on ConHome:
.
“Labour has no guaranteed right to exist and the Socialist Party of America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_of_America) gave up in 1956 after polling less than 3,000 votes across the whole US.”
This decline in our core vote, which started in America…
“By the way I write this from Paradise, aka Shangri-la, aka Xiengililla high up on the Yunnan-Tibetan border. The Chinese-Tibetan hilltribe girls are unbelievably beautiful. Maybe they are angels.”
You see. There’s a field in which Europe doesn’t lead, after all.
On topic, not even I’m that pessimistic for Labour. At that sort of level, they’re losing seats like Don Valley, Rother Valley, Morley & Outwood, Bishop Auckland, Wythenshawe & Sale East to the Conservatives, and I just can’t see them doing that badly,
59, that’s certainly a valid view, but this man disagrees:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
60, I hope they do lose Morley & Outwood.
I rally hope she is right, no more than they deserve.
O/T if this happens pre election this might help them along a bit
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100001827/a-glimpse-at-the-scary-world-post-quantitative-easing/
“It hasn’t been reported anywhere else that I’ve seen, but the head of the Debt Management Office made a remarkable appearance before the Treasury Select Committee the other week at which he admitted that the world for UK government debt-raising would look “very different” after Quantitative Easing stops.
He admitted that yields (in other words the Government’s cost of borrowing, which is passed on to all of us in the form ultimately of higher taxes, lower spending and higher borrowing costs) will rise at that point. It will be a “very different environment”, he also added; it will be a “challenge” to keep selling gilts at a decent price.”
No more boom and bust indeed………
47. Well, I’m not Stuart Dickson, but I wonder why you think a Westminster vote has anything to do with independence. A referendum will be voted on at Holyrood, not Westminster where the poll shows a substantial SNP increase in MSPs.
And frankly, as Stuart Dickson said, there are no SNP woes in this poll. The Herald headline that it was terrible news for the SNP is at best bizarre (or more accurately the usual rather skewed reporting from unionist press). Even in Westminster it’s probably doubling the MPs for the SNP and a substantial gain at Holyrood, probably 10.
Any party that considers that kind of polling woes or being shunned has a strange way of looking at things. Sure they’d rather triple or quadruple their MPs but realistically how often does that happen? This is good news.
63: Theres a lot of people saying that QE is an artifical float for the economy in lots of areas…
Surely, internal polling which puts Labour on just 120 seats wouldn’t be shown to Ashley? But if true - where the hell does Labour build its firewall? And fighting under “Gordon Brown - Five More Years!” - who is to say that Labour can’t slip further, especially if their limited funds get spent on seats swept away.
We have seen how volatile individual Westminster seats can be in by-elections, way beyond the swings seen in general elections, toppling seemingly impregnable seats of governing parties. But what if the next election becomes as infected with “kick out the bums” as if each seat were a by-election? Natural Labour supporters either defect away from Brown to “others” or more likely just sit it out until he his replaced; whilst the determined mood amongst Labour’s opponents raises turnout which for too long has been on the slide.
You can sometimes see council seats which swing hugely, sometimes against all expectations. Maybe that will happen nationally. After all, what does Labour have to offer anybody? It may have a manifesto of ideas - but after the treachery of Lisbon, that will carry no weight. Their stall will be set out and will have but the one notion:
“Gordon Brown - Five More Years!”
Have you seen the new Scottish poll from TNS-BRMB showing Labour increasing its lead over the SNP:
http://richardwillisuk.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/new-scottish-tns-bmrb-poll-%e2%80%93-labour-lead-over-snp-increases-to-14
Jackie Ashley refers to Milliband and the possibility of the EU Foreign Minister appointment. I wonder if this could be part of his plan to become leader in the medium/long term? He could slope off to Brussels and be seen poncing about on the world stage for several years while the rump of the Labour party shreds itself in opposition. He could then return to UK politics by parachuting into a winnable seat in the 2014/15 GE and be ready to take over from whoever is the leader by the time of the next GE. Just a thought…
gordon absolutely slated on Sky re a letter he wrote to the mother of a soldier who died in Afghanistan.
Can this really go on til May?
66: Also we see Labour MP’s seemingly content to let this speeding truck hit them.
As NPMP said, those standing down don’t seem to care, and I expect others have effectively given up. The MPs expense scandal could tell be a distaster for labour, as MP’s have had the stuffing knocked out of them all this year, and I expect have little fight left in them, either for themselves, or for their party. In addition the #time for a change’ bandwagon is well and truely rolling, and although some votes may go to ‘others’, young new mainstream party canditates can use it just as well.
The opinion polls may very well not tell the entire story on the gound. Labour are demoralised, broke and have given up the fight.
“Salmond poll blow as voters shun SNP”
Devastating. The SNP’s Holyrood constituency vote has actually gone up one to 40% since the last TNS-BMRB poll (for stv) at the beginning of July.
69
He was also slated on the frontpage of The Sun “Bloody ShamefulI
I bet that will hurt !
The by-election in Glasgow NE this week will show why Ashley’s sub-120 comment is wrong. During the second half of the 1992-7 parliament, the Tories probably couldn’t have held a single seat in a by-election wherever one was contested. Swings against in previously safe seats were regularly 20%+ and sometimes 30%+. A majority of 20,000 was turned into a deficit of the same scale. Despite that, the Conservatives held on to 165 seats come the election.
This week, I expect Labour to hold on to Glasgow NE, which demonstrates the solidity of their support in their safe seats. Labour has more really safe seats than the Tories - places where they have a 50%+ share of the vote. Some of these might fall, where the vote’s already polarised, but most won’t. For one thing, there’s often no obvious challenger: the Tories are frequently ahead of the Lib Dems who have no tradition, base or active organisation in the seats but the Tories are viscerally disliked by too many to ever stand a chance of winning.
Even in a perfect storm scenario, I would be astonished if the Labour total dropped below 150 and in reality expect them to hold onto around 180.
69 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8349757.stm
Beeb blaming his eye sight
68. Today programme is stressing Gordon’s poor eyesight might have been a factor in the mistakes in the letter. The exploitation of Gordon’s eyesight as and when it suits is becoming increasingly nauseating. If it was a factor, maybe they should consider his eyesight makes him unfit for office.
News of the World cleared by PCC on phone tapping. Collapse of Guardian/Labour spin operation against Coulson.
On topic: I’m suspicious of this article. Not so convinced it’s about getting rid of Gordo, but cabout reating a climate of expectation about a Tory victory. The Today programme ran a strange little item about the handover of power to the Conservatives after the election being too rapid. The underlying message was that Labour has already lost the election. I guess this is to motivate Labour voters and lull Tories into a false sense of security. Ashley’s article seems to be part of this tactic.
Some of the criticism of Gordon Brown is getting to be ridiculous. He was at the cenotaph and remembered those who fought defending this country - whether he bowed his head or not is surely irrelevant, as is the nationality of his poppy. As someone who routinely gets his name misspelt, I counsel the mother of the dead soldier to reflect on the fact that the letter was handwritten by a busy Prime Minister and to accept it as a genuine expression of sorrow rather than to go looking for hurts where none were intended.
74. “Beeb blaming his eye sight”
Are they preparing the excuses for his departure?
I understand the mother’s anger, but Brown has form on badly spelt scrawled messages; for example his ‘apology’ to Nadine Dorries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthadvice/jameslefanu/5171761/Gordon-Browns-handwriting-reveals-a-common-condition.html
I can’t see them doing 120 seats bad, but it isn’t impossible. It all depends on how comparitively well the Lib Dems actually do in the right places and the SNP. Labour have a cash disadvantage but that only hurts when you have already lost the battle of ideas. The problem for Labour is if they fail to compete now when there is no spending limit then the Conservative message will be fully disseminated befor Labour’s can even be pumped out. The painful thing for Labour is that they cannot afford to compete prior to the spending cap. It is why they floated a permanent spending cap, they wanted to cripple the strong to make up for the shortcomings of the weak, them!
In terms of seats to be had, I think it depends on the nature of polling over the next period. At the present time 200 would be pushing it and I would expect somewhere between 175-190 on current shares. 120 seats wouldn’t be down to bedrock it would be actively chiselling it away, it is possible if Labour did badly enough but I suspect that even Brown cannot shatter the bonds of faith that much within his movement. I suspect that the absolute worst case scenario on current polling would be around 150-165 or so.
70 Labour seem to have already got to the point where the Tories were in 2001 - without having even been crushed by the intervening election. I suspect large numbers of their activists will melt away. Labour are devoid of self-belief; they have no positive ideas. Not a peep. They aren’t just asleep - they are comatose; and like the Tories in 2001, the voters have no desire for Labour to wake up either.
Don’t think much of the Herald’s swingometer. 10%? Ehm no. You forgot to divide dear chaps.
And wouldn’t those poll figures give the SNP more seats? How does that work out as being shunned?
69 I am more on Gordon’s side than the Sun’s on the letter, though I must admit the style and scrawl do give the appearance of something done hurriedly and without care.
It’s good that he does write individually and that it is handwritten but in doing that he also needs to take more care in phrasing and in the actual writing. We know he has difficulties in vision but just writing slower and taking a bit more time would help.
The failure to bow his head is typical Brown though as he often seems to be thinking of something else when he should be engaged in what’s going on. In the House, scrawling on his notes, picking his nose or catching up on paperwork he seems oblivious to where he is, concentrating on some other matter.
It’s the small things that he seems unable to do properly that re-inforce the already poor public perception.
“Labour could return to the Commons with just 120 MPs”
Mmm, something worth looking forward to!
I’m not sure that Brown’s actual letter has been posted here. Judge for yourselves
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/2720283/Prime-Minister-Gordon-Brown-couldnt-even-get-our-name-right.html
84, I’d feel sympathy for Brown over the letter if he weren’t such a contemptible shit.
On the bowing issue, he’s at fault. Yes, it’s a minor protocol, but it does matter and isn’t difficult to get right.
73.79
I agree in principle except for the big unknown.
How many of Labour’s traditional WWC base, will not want to vote BNP and who also have an inbred aversion to voting Conservative, will just sit this one out on the basis that they then will not have anything to feel guilty about if Labour crashes?
Many of them still live in communities where bonds are still strong.
A large absence of the traditional Labour vote plus an anti-GB vote could topple some very large majorities.
I think the Sun letter story says more about the climate against Gordon than anything.
Ref the sort of vote shares that would give Labour 120 seats, the Regional Baxter produces that result with the SNP on 31% in Scotland and:
Con / Lab / LD
44.5/21.8/23.5
45.0/22.2/22.0
46.0/22.5/20.0
47.5/23.0/18.0
As 45% would appear to be pretty much the ceiling for the Conservatives, a Labour wipeout along the lines that Ashley suggests only seems possible if the Lib Dems markedly up their polling as well.
1931 here we come - you read it here first!
89, just 10 hours and 54 minutes to go!
David Herdson, that tallies with my suspicion about whose private polling this might be. There is nothing in the report that suggests that the polling was for Labour and indeed Jackie Ashley goes out of her way to note that Labour people might think her too gloomy. If the polling had been done for the Lib Dems, however, it puts a very different complexion on its findings.
Putting Labour on its Euro result - 17% - gives them about 100 seats, so 120 would be a triumph.
90
60. Sean Fear
“On topic, not even I’m that pessimistic for Labour. At that sort of level, they’re losing seats like Don Valley, Rother Valley, Morley & Outwood, Bishop Auckland, Wythenshawe & Sale East to the Conservatives, and I just can’t see them doing that badly,”
On electoralcalculus all those seats are in the range of Labour safeness of 133 (Wythenshawe) to 156 (Rother Valley) and as they’re WWC areas Labour would do worse in them than average.
IIRC you bet tim that Labour would get no more than 25% at the next election. So you DO see them doing that badly.
88 I would have thought that 46.0/22.5/20.0 doesn’t seem too far wide of the mark…. Gordon is worse than Foot, Clegg worse than Kennedy. They should both do respectively worse come the election.
On Gordon’s letter - yes, it is minor nit-picking nonsense. But it shows the contempt in which he is held, that even his acts of kindness are used to hang him out to dry.
And it also shows that in The Sun, he has an implacable enemy. No quarter will be given between now and May. Are you watching, Labour MP’s?
82. I think you’re right Ted, Brown did bow last year;
7.55mins in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMQBqpLFgxI&feature=related
88. DH
“As 45% would appear to be pretty much the ceiling for the Conservatives, a Labour wipeout along the lines that Ashley suggests only seems possible if the Lib Dems markedly up their polling as well.”
I don’t believe it will happen but if it turns into an ‘anyone but Labour’ election then you could see strong swings in adjacent seats to differenr parties.
In Bradford for example you might see swings to the Conservatives in West and South but to the LibDems in East.
An election predictor wont pick this up even if it allows for regional variations.
“were you up for Balls?” would be the dream scenario of course
Can’t see it though - 220 seats seems about right, 50 odd for the Lib Dems with a lot of churn, 30 odd for nats and 350 odd for the tories. maj 45-50
94 Speaking of which - where is tim? Late clocking on today…
91 - I think it reads pretty clearly that it is Labour private polling. Although it would be interesting to conjecture who is taking seats off of Labour. For instance if it were the Lib Dems wer could end up with a seat split like this.
400 : 120 : 103
If it were mainly the Conservatives we could end up with a split more like this
438 : 120: 66
The majority would be 150 and 226 respectively but the former result would possibly put Labour in graver longterm danger especially as in the former example the vote splits would be 42:25:30 and the latter 45:25:24
And did anyone hear this morning’s piece on Today about the Latvian SS? I thought it was quite a balanced report, giving wider context. Not what tim would be wanting to hear, as it demolished its smear quotient quite markedly.
I don’t understand this problem about Brown not bowing his head. As a good Presbyterian, he would know better than to bow before any “altar”, as would any Quaker, bush Baptist, old-fashined Congregationalist or other respectable Protestant.
It’s cultural differences, innit?
87 James Burdett
I think the Sun letter story says more about the climate against Gordon than anything.
I think you need to put yourself into the mind of the grieving mother. She may already have reacted angrily to the news of her son’s death and have held an anti-government position on the war in Afghanistan.
I can hear the reactions on opening and reading the letter: “He can’t even get my name right. The bloody Prime Minister can’t even spell. It’s disgraceful.”
Something must have triggered the copying of the letter to The Sun. Peer pressure amongst military families - whatever their views on Brown and the war - would have counseled constraint on releasing the letter.
There is one very, very angry grieving relative behind this story.
102, pah. I’m an atheist, but it wouldn’t mean I’d advocate not singing the national anthem.
73 I don’t think I’d disagree with a word of that.
An ultra-safe Labour seat typically has a vote split along the lines of 55% Labour, 20% Conservative, 17% Lib Dem, 8% Others. A really bad result for Labour might see it shift to 40% Labour, 30% Conservative, 20% Lib Dem, 10% Others. Still, a clear Labour majority. That’s even more true of the Central Belt in Scotland, where Labour will often have 45-50% of the vote, with the remainder divided up very neatly between competing parties.
Compare that with a similar Conservative seat. The anti-Conservative vote will usually have polarised around the Lib Dems. So a typical vote split will be Conservative 55%, Lib Dem 33%, Labour 7%, Others (mostly UKIP) 5%. It’s easy to see how such a seat could be vulnerable in a by-election, or when the Conservatives are unpopular.
94 The Almanac of British politics puts them as somewhat safer for Labour, but there’s not very much in it.
I have bet that Labour will get 25% or less, across the UK, (about 26% without Northern Ireland) but I think that translates into 160-180 seats, not 120 seats, unless the Conservatives poll well above 45%.
31. Indeed, amazingly beautiful when young, but like their Nepalese sisters, they age very very poorly.
The head bowing thing is a non-story completly. But the important thing is to show how completely Labour (and Brown in particular) have lost the media.
If Labour/Brown were doing well, and confident, this story would not appear.
102 - Oh absolutely, grief makes you emotionally very raw and you percieve slights where none were intended. However my point was that ordinarily this sort of story wouldn’t have been published, now it is and it is telling.
If we look back to the last panic period for Labour in May-July 2008, the Conservatives were polling 45-49 and Labour 23-26, with the LDs at 14-20.
Those figures put the Labour seats in the range of 130-150, so it is possible.
If 120 is a fair prediction, then Birmingham Erdington is an ultra-marginal. As the Conservative PPC describes, there has been a massive swing in the constituency since 2005 and we took the seat by a fair margin in the 2008 locals.
Personally, I’ve stopped working anywhere that is in our top 150 targets.
88 David Herdson
As 45% would appear to be pretty much the ceiling for the Conservatives
Shouldn’t we be challenging this assumption. With the Cameron and the Tories hitting 44% as their post conference highpoint, it would not be unreasonable to see them go higher. A General Election campaign with sustained exposure of Cameron on TV may well push the share further up. I accept there would need to be a squeeze on Others and that, although a similar TV exposure boost for the Lib Dems would have to result in an almost exclusive Lab-LD swing as its effect.
So improbable but not beyond the bounds of possibility.
101. Agree it was a rather balanced report. Not at all what Tim would want.
As far as Gordon’s scrawled letter is concerned, it’s not the letter itself, but using Gordon’s eyesight as an excuse that concerns me. There is no consistency here and Gordon’s eyesight should not be used as a get out clause when things get tough. I don’t think for a moment he will step down using his eyesight as a pretext. He uses it as a shield to milk sympathy. That’s what I object to.
BTW Alan Rusbridger is now querying the PCC ruling on the NOTW. Still flogging a dead horse.
110, the most important thing for Labour is that even now the Lib Dems are unable to move ahead. I think they came 2nd in one poll and equal with Labour once, and that’s it. If the Lib Dems can’t beat Brown’s Labour they’ve little prospect of achieving leadership of the Opposition, let alone Government.
2
Yeah.
Reverse psychology. “If in doubt, panic”
She’s trying to galvsnise the very hardest core of the core vote - but do they read the Guardian?
110 Especially as I expect the camapign to go against Labour. Cameron is going to have to drop a mighty clanger for people to move away from him; I strongly suspect, though, that in the campaign he will be able to convince the skeptical that he should be given a chance.
And equally, I see nothing in Brown’s personality that suggests that the avuncular, happy-go-lucky private Gordon will be given a public outing - or even if it is, that it will convince anyone to give him a further five years.
And let’s face it, under the stress of polls going ever further away from him, Gordon is much more likely to punch a nurse or a schoolkid or a puppy…
Canvassing in a WWC area in South Birmingham at the weekend. Afghanistan, Europe and expenses mentioned a lot. Didn’t hear a single word in favour of the government.
Several households previously canvassed as Labour switching straight to conservatives.
117 - If Labour were down to 120 seats on a straight switch to Tories, then I think pretty much every seat in Birmingham would be Conservative.
If Gordon Brown’s eyesight is that bad, he should have someone checking his letters. The eyesight stuff is no excuse. You dont forget how to spell if you have poor eyesight.
113 - Clearly a balanced report and clearly exposing the Tories links to a marginal extremist group.
I’m interested to know what number of seats people think is equally likely to 120, but on the high side of most likely.
280?
250?
What’s the figure for “Just about possible but really don’t expect it to happen”?
117: I think Europe is something which people like to bluster on a lot about. However when it comes to voting, and people are thinking about the economy, schoolsnhospitals etc, it tends to fade away.
‘Labour 120 Seats or fewer.’ Will Lay 16-1 and Take 28-1 but only to The Usual Suspects.
On the Gordon Brown stay or go, I will bet 4-7 that Brown stays to lead Labour at the GE and take 3-1 that he doesn’t.
117 The Midlands has a reputation for direct switching Tory –> Labour –> Tory. The LibDems are weak there and will remain so after the next election. They will keep Yardley most probably, but Solihull is a goner. I don’t see them making gains.
123 - Listen at 7.37, and see what the Tories on here seem to be proud of.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm
On the letter, one interesting point is that the first set of comments on the Sun’s website are by no means as negative as one would expect (normally, the comments in any online newspaper just pour tons of extra vitriol on top of the main article). One of them makes the fair point that it seems that the Queen does not write personally which is perhaps more shocking.
He should probably have got it typed since nobody can handwrite decently nowadays, least of all Gordon. But most people will probably feel sorry for him rather than angry.
The letter, and the very gingerly way that GB walked back to his position at the Cenotaph, its obvious his eyesight is much worse than he’s admitted to. Its becoming a bit like FDR, nobody was allowed to admit he couldn’t walk. GB cannot see, but those around him won’t come out and say so.
122 - I agree. I think it is because it’s been in the news. Forgot to mention that crime and immigration were also mentioned a lot. The interesting thing for me is that on all these issues the Tories were viewed as only slightly better than Labour - hopefully that will be enough.
120 You keep plugging that line tim.
Number of votes influenced? Statistically as near zero as makes no difference.
129 - It isn’t meant to influence voters to change, it is a dog whistle to the guardianista class.
Re Gordon’s letter - a few thoughts:
- Labour’s PR machine is in meltdown and *anything* that can be used against them is now on the table, this happened to Major but not at this very personal level.
- One can argue that ‘it’s the thought that counts’, however it fails on several levels. It’s not the handwriting, it’s the spelling errors/crossings out and getting Mrs Jane’s name wrong.
- Using Gordon’s eyesight is very weak and feeble sympathy trawling. Bad eyesight doesn’t have anything to do with spelling/crossing out and factual errors.
As someone who frequently gets her name spelt incorrectly [both first and surname] I find it annoying/sloppy and at times I take exception when it is repeatedly done - if I was looking over the shoulder of my grieving mother - I’d be incandescent.
Gordon can’t win - but he shouldn’t be giving his enemies the ball either. I can’t tell if he bowed or not, that is the problem - anyone with a head and torso can get it right.
130 Yup. It keeps their champagne glasses topped up as they survey their weird little world from up there on the moral highground of Mount Guardianista.
131: One does have to wonder if he would get away with having it typed (and personally signed). A personal handwritten letter is of course perferable, but not that childish illwritten scrawl.
133 - He could do what my dyslexic sister does for handwritten letters, types it and has it checked for grammar and spelling then copies it by hand.
Plato
Her name isn’t Mrs Jane’s.
This is the sort of intrusiveness that is anathema to most people.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1226136/Now-safety-police-want-check-smoke-alarms.html
120. The Tories are linked to a marginal extremist group? You mean the Tories are linked to… Labour?? But that’s absurd, clearly the - oh, sorry - ah.
Easy mistake to make, though, when it looks like the government will be getting about as many seats as Mebyon Kernow at the next election. Talk about marginal.
As for Grievingmothergate, I have sympathies with Il Gordino, on this one, he is obviously half blind and at least he did write. But James Burdett gets it bang on: the political juice in this story is the fact it has emerged at all, and is being employed by media enemies.
Brown is now despised, so much, people will bash him with any stick they can find, even if its a blind man’s walking stick. Ahem.
This drubbing for Brown is now much worse, it seems to me, then anything John Major got, or Neil Kinnock in opposition. Labour and their leader are loathed, with a keen and religious fervour: thanks to the recession, immigration, expenses, Europe, all the lies and spin, and because of Brown himself.
How do you stop being loathed? Only time can do that. Lots and lots of time in opposition.
Interesting the BBC report just mentions mis-spelled name, which can happen. Here is what the Sun says,
“Mr Brown misspelled her surname. He misspelled Jamie’s name too, then scribbled out his mistake. They weren’t the only errors. The note was hastily scrawled and almost illegible.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece#ixzz0WLxYwCQP
So, according to them, there are various mistakes, AND, the big AND, Gordo realised he misspelled a name, but did he start the letter again, did he f##k, he just crossed it out. That to be me is far more insulting, everybody can make a mistake, but to notice it and then can’t be bothered to re-write a letter of this importance / sensitive nature is the real sin here.
138: Indeed…does no one ultimately do QA at No10. (Just imagine that job though!)
Ummm excuse me Mr Brown…could you just rewrite this letter. *boom* nokia to the side of the head..
Why isn’t tim on this thread?
Radio 4 had a 7-minute news item on Latvian $$ this morning at 7.40am.
I’d have thought he’d have had to change his trousers at least twice by now.
Oracle - I was listening to R5 and Shelagh was really pretty appalled, her whole tone was very disapproving and whilst I dislike her generally superior manner - it really did make me stop and listen.
I’m surprised that R5 gave it so much prominence. Just heard that Gordon is now saying ‘didn’t mean to give any offence’ which is undoubtedly true but how humiliating.
Brown may have poor eyesight, which is very unfortunate. However Brown’s handwriting, grammar and spelling are all appaling.
It’s no wonder he speaks that he sounds so awful if the scottish idiot can’t read his own handwriting !
137
Europe ‘eh, ah well at least that won’t be a problem under the Tories.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6525111/William-Hague-Tories-would-not-take-on-Europe-for-some-years.html
That means never then.
138. Actually, yes, hm - I hadn’t heard that bit.
And if that IS true (and do I trust the Sun on this?) then it is pretty damn disgraceful. Even a one eyed Labour idiot surely knows you simply do not cross out names in a letter of condolence to a grieving mother.
Tut bloody TUT. Maybe Gordon deserves all the contempt, and more - IF this is true.
Morning all.
My first reaction is that Ms Ashley is talking through her hat. However, she may accurately be reflecting some of the gloom which is no doubt endemic amongst Labour MPs and the party as a whole. That is significant mainly in that it suggests recovery by Labour won’t happen.
What makes me especially sceptical is that she seems to contradict herself: “It [the alleged but non-existent U turn] will weaken the Tory performance at the general election because some of their voters will switch to Ukip.”
If that is true to any significant degree, Labour will get a lot more than 120 seats.
Overall, my view remains pretty much unchanged: a Conservative majority in the region of 60-70. URW’s suggested outcome, which he posted a few days ago, looks about right:
CON 362
LAB 194
LD 54
SNP 14
PC 05
OTH 03
NI 18
You heard it here first.
by URW November 5th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I think there is probably more chance of the Conservatives doing better than that than of them doing worse, but as a central prediction it looks in the right ballpark, given current polls and a reasonable assessment of how the political landscape is likely to develop.
I feel rather sorry for the PM on this one, and for the head bow thing.
It’s symptomatic of how he is generally viewed, but there are enough bad things about him without stuff like this.
136 - I could write exactly the same article claiming that carbon monoxide checks on boilers are the start of a Stasi style police state.
Mail nonsense.
As somebody said last night, WTF is the GE campaign going to be like? If Gordo manages a f##k up a day, when most of his day is stage managed and a lot of this is self inflicted, what is it going to be like when the press are on him 24/7 for 3-4 weeks (and he seems to tire really quickly, notice he only does a day or two in the media for hiding in the bunker) and the public might just get to him?
for hiding -> before hiding
140 see 120 125
Our tim never misses an opportunity…
Good to see that Dave’s new best mate is committed to freedom.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google
As long as you pay for it.
I think the head bowing is a non-story. I am uncomfortable with the implication that there is a “correct” way to show respect – in the same way that there is a “requirement” to wear a poppy, or to wear it from mid October.
On the letter, the odd thing as noted above is the correction to the name, surely you would start again. Also, I am surprised that no-one else looks at these before they go out.
I wonder how many people actually write a hand-written note these days. As I type more and more, my handwriting worsens and spelling deteriorates.
Gordo has apologised and phoned .
Of course its too late, the damage is done
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Gordon-Brown-Disrespectful-Says-Mother-Of-Guardsman-Jamie-Janes-After-PM-Gets-Soldiers-Name-Wrong/Article/200911215445164?lpos=Politics_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15445164_Gordon_Brown_Disrespectful_Says_Mother_Of_Guardsman_Jamie_Janes_After_PM_Gets_Soldiers_Name_Wrong
146 - Huh?
So if you were writing to a dead relative, and you noticed you had misspelled a name, would you a) rewrite the letter or b) scrawl out the mistake and insert the right one? The misspelling isn’t the real offense here.
135 - To ride to Plato’s defence, the practice on placing apostrophes in names ending in s is not settled.
eg - St James’s Park
St James’ Court
Jesu’s tears
offense -> offence
We can only keep our fingers crossed and fervently hope that she’s right.
105. “An ultra-safe Labour seat typically has a vote split along the lines of 55% Labour, 20% Conservative, 17% Lib Dem, 8% Others. A really bad result for Labour might see it shift to 40% Labour, 30% Conservative, 20% Lib Dem, 10% Others”
What if the BNP stood a candidate and did very well?
Say: 10% Swing to Conservative; 5% to Lib Dem and 12% to BNP:
28% Labour, 30% Conservative; 20% Lib Dem and 22% Others (including BNP)
That’s a Con GAIN.
I read the following from the Daily Mash and thought of Morris Dancer of this parish.
“Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: “Our research shows a worrying increase in children trying to ambush each other with elaborate traps involving boulders, detonators and seige catapults.”
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/child-anvil-injuries-at-record-high-200911082210/
152. It could have been worse. He could have texted the condolence.
Sory to hr about yr son. Plz accpt m condos. Evry1 feel gr8 sadnss abt jon no bob. l8er. GB.
It was mentioned up thread that the QE2 doesn’t write to grieving families - that’s not what the Sun article says.
“Mum-of-six Jacqui went on: “In the days after Jamie’s death I got letters from Prince Philip, Buckingham Palace, the Defence Secretary and his regiment. ”
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/2720283/Prime-Minister-Gordon-Brown-couldnt-even-get-our-name-right.html#ixzz0WM2AStGq
142. Wayne: “…Brown’s handwriting, grammar and spelling are all appaling.”
Good grief.
125. LOL!
Knew you wouldn’t disappoint tim.
YOU ENTERTAIN ME.
159
Also, remember Gordo has made a rod for his own back on this one. His people let it be known he really cares about ever loss and so hand writes a note. He then also appeared on GMTV, tear in eye, claiming he remembered every name of those that were killed, before reading out the names of the latest batch of those that had been killed.
Anecdote Alert: I spent a week recently in a northern Labour constituiency that survived the 1983 Falklands landslide. Labour activists I went to school with talked openly about being “in deep ****” and ” completely ****ed”. They are fighting for their lives and think there is a realistic prospect they’ll lose the seat.
One particulalry telling exchange was about the “guilt” some canvassers were experiencing because there was so much direct Lab/BNP switching going on they thought it might just save them as a certain sort of person just wouldn’t vote Tory ( This bizzare heirarchy of stigma tells you a lot about some WWC areas). However the most shocking thing about the whole exchange was it became clear after a while that the main purpose of the pub invitation was to get *my* advice on their campaign strategy.
WTF?
#44 and others
‘Salmond poll blow as voters shun SNP’
This Herald headline (and they are far from the worst offenders) is archetypal unionist press reporting of Scottish politics.
Nobody (at least outside Scotland)reading that headline would expect that when they read the detail it would show the SNP total up by about 8% for Holyrood since the 2007 victory and up 7% since the 2005 GE for Westminster.
However, the real issue is what does this mean for the 2010 GE?
There is a strong indication that there is an unusually high % of undecided voters in this poll and that rings true. I believe most of the difference between Holyrood and UK voting intentions is about perceived influence of the various parties.
At the moment Salmond is arguing that there is likely to be a hung parliament and that in these circumstances an SNP vote will be very influential.
I don’t doubt that he has a plan B if polls show the Tories are certain winners, in which he will urge Scots to give him leverage at Westminster via more MPS to add to the pressure he can exert on Cameron as First Minister.
I suspect if all hope is lost for a Labour victory this would be the best scenario for the SNP.
No matter how many seats the SNP win in 2010 under the crazy FPTP system, their position will be a much stronger one than it is now-though the unionist press will try to portay it differently, as usual.
160 Might depend on whose the honorary Colonel.
Has Labour attempted to smear the mother of the dead soldier yet?
160. This is where we see the true effect of the Sun’s switching allegiance. They are gonna be hammering away like this, week after week, bludgeoning the government with whatever comes to hand - right up to the GE.
The Sun can drive an agenda which then gets picked up by the other media. Given that the Sun now Officially Hates Labour, this agenda will not be good for Gordon.
The Sun’s animosity could lose them another 20 seats over time.
164 They’ve clearly been reading your posts on PB!
163 Gordo’s reading out of names before PMQs has often struck me as simply a way to sober the occaision and reduce the flak he gets. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t recall Maggie reading out names of the dead before PMQs during the Falklands conflict.
I think Sean Fear has predicted Labour would face a catastrophic wipe-out at the election - Not sure if he’s said they’ll go as low as 120 seats - And usually not far wrong with his election predictions (infact, if anything Labour usually end up doing a little worse than Seans says) So I would say Jackie may be right.
170 Tony started it - not sure when but have a feeling it was around 2004
164: Voting for the actual nazi party would be preferable to voting tory for some ‘labour through-n-through’ types.
147 - tim: gas boilers, smoke alarms, temperature regulators on baths … just where would you draw the line?
164 - I would take your advice on campaign strategy too. It shows that Labour still have some intelligent activists.
“This is where we see the true effect of the Sun’s switching allegiance.”
Yes, the Afg stuff is completely toxic. In the rougher areas it should make up for “peace in our time” plus a bit extra.
Brown not bowing his head is a matter of protocol, and far from being immaterial, it is very important indeed.
The Monarch represents the people of the UK on these and similar occasions, and protocols - political etiquettes - are derived from the Head of State.
At this ceremony, HM Queen bowed her head as a mark of respect to the fallen. Such an acknowledgement is afforded to no-one else except God - not Presidents, Popes, Generals, not even other Monarchs and certainly not Prime Ministers.
For Brown not to follow his Monarch’s lead is a matter of gross discourtesy, both to HM and also, more importantly, to those whom HM is respectfully acknowledging.
158, he missed off giant artillery guns for firing Ed Balls into the heart of the sun though
164, I hope you did your duty and gave them duff gen
170, I dislike the reading out of the names. Also, why don’t we hear about the Taliban we’ve killed?
150. I can see him now:
Tim sitting at his kitchen counter at 7.30am this mornning, bored stiff as his drums the fingers of his left-hand on the counter and nenthusiastically picking through a bowl of Museli with the other.
Then.. SUDDENLY.. the radio comes alive… “And now..LATVIA”
Tim sits bolt upright in his chair. His neck taught like a startled Meerkat; his ears prick up, he drops his spoon, his eyes sparkle, his lips part as he gasps for breath and starts hyperventilating..
“Susan! SUSSAAAN! It’s Latvia! LATVIA! LAAAAATTTTVVVIIIIIAAAAAA!”
He makes a grab for the kitchen towel as the reporter starts to elucidate on the Fatherland and Freedom Party, slowly tim unbuttons his flies and lowers his chilly hand into his trousers to search for his
YS
It’s not just the north. I can think of one particular Labour area down here, where back in 07, the MP and his hacks were dismissive of the efforts the local tories were putting in. ”Why bother, you’ll never get near winning.” and the like.
Roll forward to 09 and there is an air of panic, a deluge of communications allowance mailings and even, shock of shocks, the sight of the MP *canvassing*. Most amusing.
It’s a useful generalisation that the range of possible outcomes is usually far wider than people imagine. A good example is the scale of the C&N win. As the poll approached predictions narrowed so that almost everyone was predicting a Tory win in the range of 2,000 - 4,000. Even with a great deal of polling data, it’s very difficult to be this precise.
misspelt English, it started in America….
181
*Boaks*
The more you see of this sort of thing, the more you realise how the French got it right in 1831, when they created the Foreign Legion.
If the British public are so sensitive to British soldiers deaths then its time to ensure the sharp end ‘aint British.
Men who will be paid to fight and in the same way as the FFL in Algeria, ‘live’ in Afghanistan.
181 - Perhaps I should set up a web cam for you, you do sound rather excited.
181: MIND BLEACH!!!!!
Grievingmothergate is now the number 1 story on BBC News UK.
Remember when Labour could steer the news narrative like JKRowling writing a potboiler. Sic transit gloria mundi.
I reckon the story has purchase for two reasons.
People are now actively seeking pretexts to hate Gordon and Labour even more than they do already. This kind of story, showing the PM in a poor moral light (however feeble the story itself) is perfect for that: everyone can look down at the insect life of Labour and sneer and say: told you so, look at them, scum. Ugh. Etc.
Secondly, this story is, I reckon, a vicarious way for many people to say: What the f*ck are we doing in Afghanistan, its a pointless and unwinnable war, let’s leave.
Of course voters can’t come right out and say this, directly - as it seems “unpatriotic” when our boys are still dying in Helmand. But this letter stuff (and anger about lack of helicopters, etc etc) is, I suggest, a way of subtly and stealthily expressing that deep dissatisfaction with the whole campaign.
Iraq and Afghanistan. Labour’s foreign policy legacy. Oh god.
179 - to be fair to Brown, I was expecting him to fall over after stepping back off the Cenotaph or drop his wreath en route to it, or similar. So I suppose forgetting to bow was a minor slip-up and the day went pretty well by his standards…
The condolence letter is contemptible. Presumably many other grieving families will have received similar scrawls written in black marker pen with typos/illegibilities? I wonder if they might now come forward with their letters?
I do wonder if Browns having some sort of breakdown. I mean, forgetting to bow his head at the Cenotaph. Thinking it acceptable to send a virtually un-readable scribbled and spelling mistake strewn letter to a dead soldiers grieving family.
These are the actions of a man completely losing the plot, if you ask me.
I yield to no one in my enthusiasm for kicking Brown but that letter evokes pity rather than anger. Look what the Sun says:
COMMITTED four other spelling mistakes: Greatst for greatest, condolencs for condolences, you instead of your, and colleagus for colleagues.
He also wrote the letter “i” incorrectly 18 times - mostly by leaving the dots off them but once by using two in “security”.
And he ended with a repetition - writing “my sincere condolences” and then signing off “Yours sincerely”.
My surname is Leigh (NOT fecking Lee Lea Legh or Ley, got that?) and I would go ballistic at a letter which misspelt the name if that was its only error but if you look at the other mispellings you can see that this is a man in meltdown. Say what you like about him he is very highly educated and literate. He doesn’t think greatest is spelt greatst,or condolences condolencs and it isn’t as if he is in doubt on the subject but can’t be bothered to look it up. These are not lazy spelling mistakes; he seems to have lost control of what his hands write.
I don’t think it right to criticise the lady involved (I won’t run the risk of typing her surname) but this is the most contemptible bit of tabloid behaviour I can remember since Hillsborough. Surely anyone with any decency would have declined the story on the grounds that no matter how guilty Brown is this spat can only demean the memory of the son, or at least reported it as soberly as possible. That stuff about dotting the letter i is playground name calling stuff; lots of people don’t dot is. The “double” signing off is perfectly normal and acceptable.
I don’t worry about the tories being linked to allegedly homophobic latvians, but it stinks that they are close to a newspaper like this.
I don’t see the man who wrote that letter taking a party through a general election.
And for those who keep on eye on public finances and the investment/cuts bollox:
A friend works in a big government department in whitehall. They’ve been banned from all travel, incidental and like expenditure. Recruitment freeze, including the use of contractors, which have to be approved way up the chain. Plans are advanced to drastically reduce the amount of office space being used. He has to apply in writing for stationery.
190 A very good point Mr Sykes - it seems unlikely that there aren’t others of similar quality. That would be very very bad news for Gordon - perversely, it may get him sympathy points though if it goes too far.
191 - Also, A man whose advisers either don’t care or just won’t say no to him. Not sure which is more worrying!
189. Brown has become the ideal scapegoat figure for all Britain’s current ills. As a miserable, misanthropic, visually unattractive and emotionally retarded individual he ticks all the boxes perfectly.
Just think what is going to happen during a GE campaign. Hahaha
Re: Gordon Brown not bowing at the Cenotaph and the spelling in condolence letters debate -it’s the public perception that counts rather than the reality.
Ask 100 people to name one fact about Michael Foot and, if they remember him at all, the chances are that they will mention him for wearing a donkey jacket at the Cenotaph. For years Mr. Foot protested, to no avail, that it wasn’t a donkey jacket but an expensive coat which one member of the Royal family had complimented him on as a sensible choice on a cold winter’s day.
Does anyone remember Foot’s disasterous election campaign - falling off a platform, nearly being knocked off an open top bus by a lower branch? I can see Brown’s election campaign stumbles being ten times worse.
191 GIN - His note of pseudo-apology to the targets of the McBride smears was similar. I think it is arrogance and insensitivity; he probably regards these things as distractions from his role in Saving The World.
What is more surprising is that there was apparently no-one able to point out to him that maybe it would be a good idea to re-write the letter.
180 “If the British public are so sensitive to British soldiers deaths then its time to ensure the sharp end ‘aint British.”
That’s not what it’s about.
189. I think if anything the Nutt fiasco was an even more remarkable example of this although lettergate wiill have more resonance. As a liberal on Drug policy I’m well aware of how illiberal most people are on Drug policy and how out of step with mainstream opinion my own views are.
Johnston should have got votes out of the the nutty proffessor sacking however instead he got a proccess story fiasco and an unsympathetic figure was cannonised by the media.
187. AH! No denial I see?
190
Keeling-over would be an instant and perfectly acceptable excuse. In fact Brown could have gone one better and dropped dead on the spot, and thereby earned some praise.
Gordon’s letter: This is the second time we’ve had this in recent months.
The first was during ‘Smeargate’ when he wrote a ‘personal apology’ to Nadine Dorries (I think).
That was just the same; handwritten scrawl using a thick marker pen, poor spelling and syntax. The same excuses for this were used then; poor eyesight, it’s the thought that counts etc.
In both cases, the lack of care and thought and oversight by a Private Secretary indicates a ‘couldn’t care less’ and ‘can’t be bothered attitude’ that borders on contempt, not necessarily for the individual recipient, but for the fact that the demands made on his time to write them.
The man is beyond the pale.
201 - I deny the muesli
Thinking back to 2007, senior Tories could n’t wait for Blair to go and Brown to take over. Then there was the Brown bounce and they appeared lazy and complacent. Maybe they were right all along…
192. All good points, Constan T, and there is something slightly distasteful about all this (as I aver upthread): Brown is the moral whipping boy of the nation, almost literally the scapegoat for all our sins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoat
It’s not nice.
However you miss two factors.
The woman went to the media with the letter, not the other way round. Given her situation, she is surely entitled to express her anger, whether Brown’s errors were egregious or just unfortunate.
And you can’t diss the Tories because the Sun behaves like this! FFS. Labour were happy to have the Sun on board for a decade.
And Labour is perfectly content for the Guardian to run a truly nasty, absurd and nihilistic campaign against the Poles and Latvians, virtually accusing entire countries of anti-Semitism, just to try and smear David Cameron and William Hague.
The Guardian’s behaviour seems worse, to me, than the Sun’s.
196 - I am getting to the point where on a point of humanity I think it would be best if Gordon wasn’t around for the election. I think when the strain is showing this much it is clear that something isn’t right. I want shot of Labour as much as most but I would prefer it in circumstances other than they are.
I don’t like the sight of pitchforks and the smell of flaming torches that seems to be increasingly in evidence.
198 One can only assume that they are too scared to tell him. I don’t imagine that he puts them in the envelope and addresses them himself.
Those non-apology letters were very revealing - they reminded me of a teenager who didn’t think they’d actually done anything wrong.
re 103 Seth the letter does say something about Brown. If it had been Blair at the height of his popularity this story would never have seen the light of day beyond the unfortunate soldier’s family. Because there’s a narrative that Brown in utterly incompetent in everything he does from destroying our economy downwards, it just adds to that narrative.
‘there was apparently no-one able to point out to him that maybe it would be a good idea to re-write the letter’
As has ever been the case, deranged and insecure monarchs surround themselves with yes-men and sycophants…
181 … mouse (?)
190, 194 The Sun have seen other letters, their graphologist says this one is markedly different:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/2720283/Prime-Minister-Gordon-Brown-couldnt-even-get-our-name-right.html
198. Indeed. The fact Brown either isn’t being given or refuse’s to take advice on even the simplest matters is just another sign thats he’s completely unsuitable to be Prime Minister.
What a strange paradox he is. At the same time as being a complete control freak and unable to delegate, he’s also totally inept and a ditherer.
I truely believe there will never be another PM as dreadful as Brown in the rest of my life - Thank god!
198. Richard Nabavi.
Precisely.
Where is Gabble this morning, trying to shut the story down again? Apparently we are all a disgrace to those that have paid the ultimate sacrifice, by trying to score party political points over Gordo’s conduct….
I hope his real identity isn’t revealed and found to be as rumoured, he would be in a world of hurt!
187 TIMBOT, no thank you. A live video stream of one man sordid activity from your filthy bedsit, would probably break the internet.
204. lololololol!!!!
Did anybody notice Tucker mention TimBot on the Thick of It this weekend?
Morning all and on a day the media is doing a demolition job on Gordon Brown. I hadn’t spotted the fact he hadn’t bowed at the Centotaph but then I just thought he looked like a tired overweight heavy smoking alcoholic in comparison to the somewhat fresh-faced Cameron and Clegg and as Brown neither smokes nor drinks it does suggest his health is not good.
That letter was an utter disgrace. With a PM like him it is hardly surprising education standards in the UK have plumetted in the past decade and more. Hardly a word with more than 2 sylables appeared to have been correctly spelled.
On thread, if Labour is going to lose big then it has to sustain major hits in Scotland. Even with Brown deeply unpopular I still cannot see Labour losing mroe than 14 or 15 seats, roughly 37.5% of their Scottish team.
Ignore TNS if their systems haven’t improved since they were System 3, a company which never accurately predicted an election result in its puff. I still reckon Scotland will be close to Labour -14, LibDems -4, SNP +12, Tories +6.
What if Gordon is simply unable to do handwriting? I’m like that and to me being forced to put pen to paper is a form of torture that I avoid at all costs.
Throughout my life I’ve been unable to produce legible handwriting.
So things like letters of condolence or thank you notes are completely beyond my capabilities.
When I was a PPC my agent demanded that I top and tail thousands and thousands of letters and I still remember the agony.
Thank Gawd for the type-writer then the computer.
193 “He has to apply in writing for stationery.”
Images of a Kafka-esque world where Government stops because they have run out of the forms to ask for extra stationery - and there is no form to ask for the forms to ask for extra stationery….
219. Easterross: “Hardly a word with more than 2 sylables appeared to have been correctly spelled.”
re 172 she didn’t, and nor did Major. It’s entirely a Blair invention - no doubt a wheeze dreamt up to try and convince people he cared.
222 More insight from Gabble I see.
217 - Actually i heard it on the iplayer after it was referred to on here.
Surpisingly the Tory posters referred to it.
Odd really given the content of the report not only showed the Fatherland And Freedom party as an extremist joke, but also exposed tham as trying to ethnically cleanse their country as recently as a decade ago.
I’m more surprised McDoom spelt comfort “cumfort” than the mistake on the lad’s name. It was a clear u rather than o. I’m not sure what this tells us.
220: But as I said…might he have got away with a typed letter?
Tricky call…I would say yes, but then others might not.
I have some sympathy with Stalin MacSporran and his handwriting problem.
My own handwriting is appalling because I write nothing by hand any more. It started when I acquired a typewriter at university in 1982. By 1988, at work, I had a desktop PC and plain paper printer. That would be the last time I handwrote a letter.
Nowadays I take notes in meetings, but type them up immediately afterwards, so I can remember (rather than try to read back) what I wrote. I also write birthday cards, and shopping lists.
That would be about it. I don’t even write cheques or sign credit card slips any more.
A few months ago I wrote to my life insurance company and they wrote back to say that wasn’t my signature at the bottom of my letter.
The fine motor skills are seeping away.
I don’t really know what MacSporran can do about this, but it’s a bit obnoxious to spin it that it’s his dodgy eyesight.
He’d be better off signing a card of condolence and then ‘phoning the parents or wife (or going to see them whenever his schedule permits). It would take the same amount of time, wouldn’t create this sort of opportunity to hate him and I suspect he’d probably come over better.
The trouble is that he is now personally - and rightly - identified with the equipment shortages that have led to so many of these deaths that he probably needs to stay as far away from the issue as possible. Plus, of course, he probably doesn’t want to hear at first-hand how very badly his Government looks after the casualties of its policies.
Sean Fear, seeing as we are talking about scapegoating and dire punishments, you asked prethread for some references to the Chinese “human pig” story.
I found it in John Keay’s excellent new one volume history of China, which is jolly good BTW - he packs an an amazing amount of into - the entire history of China! - into 600 pages. And he spices the loaf with some cool anecdotes, as a good historian should.
But if you Google *human pig lady chi* you will find other references, e.g. here:
http://tinyurl.com/y9mnfom
Her suffering was even worse, it seems, than Keay suggests.
224 TIMBOT, shouldn’t you be repeating your Thatcher/Berlin Wall lies this morning?
222, 223 - I think we have to concede that Gabble has scored a palpable hit there!
220. Mike, perhaps he could get lovely Sarah to write them and he could sign them, if that is the case?
222
I think its fair to say that we all make typos, I certainly don’t when I write letters,(or at least I make a darned good effort to ensure that I have not) because I re-read them before I send them out and check any difficult words.
I have always had problems with dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s. No idea why, but my headmaster made me write out kitty’s tit bits and indivisibility a thousand times, not that it did any good.
I also have the most terrible handwriting, for which I was picked on and ridiculed by my Primary School teacher. I try to avoid writing all but the briefest of notes, to me the shocking thing in this note are the grammar and spelling errors in this letter. Surely someone should have checked this note and pointed out the errors to Brown? Or could it be that due to all of the stories of Gordon losing his temper with staff that they’re afraid to correct him?
206. yes the guardian stinks, and yes the tories would be mad to try to rebuff the Sun’s support for any reason at all. This is just a nasty wake up call to those of us who had sold ourselves the story that the paper is harmless British fun like dirty postcards.
220. my thoughts too, his handwriting is uncannily like my own. I’ve hated writing thank you letters or signing cards with a personal message because of this. The accusation that he used sincere condolences and sincerely seems a bit ott.
However, saying that…it is because of a number of his faults in other areas that he has made himself a lightning rod for all that people hate about Labour, the state and politicians.
I don’t know why, but I’m actually feeling sorry for Gordon Brown over lettergate.
As someone who suffers from both poor eyesight (diabetes) and bad handwriting (son of a Doctor, it’s hereditary)
Writing letters can be a real stress for me, fortunately I have a plethora of people who check my letters and typing before they are sent out.
Why is it all my letters are checked before they are sent out, but not the PM’s?
I wonder if Brown had gone to a really good school like Eton whether he’d be able to write and spell better.
234. I can’t see the problem with nasty stories being run against a man whose behaviour has been so utterly disreputable over so many years, culminating in the disgusting smeargate episode.
181. You sure tims got one, Casino Royale?
231. In the same way that a fly hits a window. It leaves a smear, that is all.
In fact that is quite a good metaphor for Labour’s entire political campaigning of the last year. Like flies hitting windows, leaving unsightly smears.
My handwriting deteriorates if I have a lot of it to do. I have two handwriting styles, formal and jotting. My jotting style is legible only by me really but my formal letter writing hand is pretty reasonable.
I think it’s rude to make someone read your illegible handwriting, triply so when it’s a letter of condolence. For Brown to make spelling mistakes and to use his usual black felt tip just shows how much he doesn’t give a toss. Imagine Cameron writing a letter of condolence; I imagine it would be thoroughly decent.
“Does anyone remember Foot’s disasterous election campaign - falling off a platform, nearly being knocked off an open top bus by a lower branch? I can see Brown’s election campaign stumbles being ten times worse.”
That would be something to look forward to. Sadly, I expect the the man himself will deprive us of such entertainment by bottling out long before the election comes round…
232 “perhaps he could get lovely Sarah to write them”
With each recipient receiving a phial of Her very own tears, to keep and cherish for always…
199
That’s exactly what its about, the UK public do not like British soldiers dying in Afghanistan, they don’t see the point any longer. Everytime a coffin goes through Lyneham resolve weakens.
The world is full of fit young men who would love the chance to go to Afghanistan and fight. Give them the chance. Four years, (not six months) at the end of the engagement, ‘lump sum’ £150,000 tax free.
Oh dear - Gordon has now phoned Mrs Janes. What a car crash.
I suspect the answer to Gordon’s letter is simple.
He’a workaholic who finds it difficult to delegate. So he probably wrote it late at night - and with age and failing eyesight his vision will be impaired by fatigue.
Personal duty forces him to write each personally and gives to a clerk next morning to post. Not to check. To address a letter and post.
Any normal person would dictate and sign but if you are writing at 1am… Explains face demeanour etc..
248 This is a man who has time to watch X Factor and ring Susan Boyle.
248 Everything about that letter - and Gordon Brown - screams “tired”.
Utter, dead-on-your feet fatigue.
The letter…
Yes, he wrote a personal note - which is admirable and appropriate
However I want a leader who takes a certain pride in his work, pays close attention to detail
If I were sending a note such as that, I would check it over a few times to make sure I had it right.
And I can’t believe there isn’t a personal secretary who has to pop such missives into envelopes ready for the post.
Getting the little things right does matter. It shows that you care rather than just going through the motions.
Gordon probably does care - just doesn’t bother to check his own work. This is nothing to do with his eyesight and everything to do with his mindset.
The poor family that has lost a beloved child has every right to be upset at the slapdash way this has been done. I would be shouting from the rooftops myself if I were in the same position.
248. MFISH - I’m sure this is how it played out.
Re wiganer’s post at 243…….which MP would write the sweetest condolence letter ?
Who in Parliament would you most dearly love to get a condolence letter from ?
Widders for me,darlings.
245 - that’s Monday’s “tea splurted all over monitor” moment.
247 - I hope she gives a full account of the conversation to The Sun. No doubt he will have apologised without actually apologising at all, failed to use the word “sorry”, and then gone into a rant about how much worse life would be under the Tories…
248; Then he’s simply a bad PM. And it’s as simple as that. Time mangement and delegation are one of the most fundament skills leaders should have.
243 those of us with bad handwriting have bad handwriting; we are not secret calligraphers who for some reason want to disguise the fact. I don’t see that any alternative to handwriting is possible; anything typed would raise the suspicion that it was typed by someone else and generated by filling in the blanks in condolenceletter.doc. So Brown can’t win.
245. …and perhaps a lock of her hair as well
If Sarah Brown is such a PR expert why does she allow these letters to go out?
237 - I agree with this. It does seem to be an example of Brown not being able to do right for doing wrong. The text of the letter seems fair enough - and what do you really say to a mother whose son has just died due to your decisions (whether reasonable or not)?
Glasgow NE By-election- I am hearing that it’s not great news for Labour and that differential turnout will be key. Labour have been spinning all weekend that their Polling has them “over the moon” but from the evidence I have seen it is not at all clear cut- it really is neck and neck but the undecideds and soft Labour/ soft SNP will really decide this election. You have to ask why was there no poll in any of the Sunday papers the weekend before polling day? They had polls for Glasgow East and Glenrothes but nothing for Glasgow NE. Even the Lib-Dem candidate, whom I know, has said Labours vote is crumbling. The extra 4500 voters and the postals do worry me though! Given the territory I still feel a Labour win circa 1500 but it really is all to play for this week, also I would estimate turnout to be a shade under 30%
167
I’m not usually a press conspiracy type but the Herald “shun SNP” headline is one of the worst examples of flagrant bias in the less than glorious annals of the increasingly pathetic Scottish press.
In fact, a glance at the TNS Systems Three website would show that the LAST Scottish Parliament voting intention poll was in June not May as the paper states and the SNP consituency vote has gone UP from 39 to 40 over that period! Hardly a satistically significant movement but rather explodes their “honeymoon over” analysis.
THE SNP ARE THEREFORE THE FIRST PARTY IN HISTORY TO BE “SHUNNED” BY THEIR VOTE GOING UP AND WINNING A PROJECTED 54 SEATS COMPARED TO THE PRESENT 47!
If this were the Daily Mail we would all shrug our shoulders - but the Herald! - how sad.
There has to be something wrong with someone who comes back from a 6week break over the summer looking worse than when he went.
why was he at the finance meeting in St Andrews…was he really needed there for example?
256 - Brown could get it right. There is no excuse for not checking you have the names right. This is not about him being tired or having poor eyesight
It is about getting the details right. If he cared enough, he would - or someone in the private office would make sure that it was right. Spelling other words incorrectly happens - but you make sure you get the names right.
If he had done this, then the fuss this morning would never have happened.
Gordon can’t spell is not a story
Gordon can’t be bothered to get the name of a dead solider right is - and deservedly so
256 I wouldn’t expect to get a handwritten letter from the PM - I’d expect a typed letter that was topped and tailed and beautifully worded, and a phone call to follow it up.
If the PM is going to send troops out, then he has a duty to respect their lost life more than being too tired or busy hiding behind school children.
Bruin’s “error’s” are in my view, a lack of the social skill’s afforded to most of us. The unwritten rules that we never question but do naturally as its the done thing.
A bowed head should be a natural action, in the same way as removing a hat for the dead. The effort and care when writing a personal letter, particularly (thou’ not exclusively) for a matter such as this, warrants clarity and care, along with empathy.
As others have said before, Brown offers none of these qualities, nor does think and acknowledge that he’s wrong when other say otherwise. I’m sad to say, that being the PM requires qualities that Brown doesn’t have, and I’m not even mentioning the lack of political nous that we all have been victims of.
Statesman? No. A state of a man, most definitely.
I am sure Rusty’s intentions are well-meant, but surely his missus could have helped. Isn’t she a former PR-thingy…?
I can’t imagine old Dennis would not have checked Maggie’s output and I’m sure the Blair-woman would have kept Tony under-control. Even Edwina would offer advice to John Major I assume. So why is everything associated with Brown so disfunctional?
I wonder how much legs this story will have. The hand-written letter shows a personal touch, but if the output turns out to be formulaic then the degree of fore-thought will severely undermine the intentions. [And if formulaic, why not template the document as a computer-file and sign the bl00dy thing once the gaps have been filled in?]
On-topic:
I agree with Sean Fear in that I aim willing to bet money that Labour will struggle to gain 25% of the polled electorate at the next GE. However the Paddy-Power market has little value in the bands between 22% and 30% (and I’d prefer to bet with my head this time, not my heart)!
260 Not what OGH wants to hear!
207.
James,
Don’t get emotionally attached, Brown shall be pitched forked, carried aloft through the streets and thrown upon the bonfire on GE day !
Wildly OT, but does anyone else think it would be a good day if this guy
http://www.st-dunstans.org.uk/how_we_help/meet_the_st_dunstaners/simon_brown.html
who marched at the Cenotaph yesterday could be persuaded to stand as an MP in either a winnable seat or as an independent?
120 seats is possible, although it would be at the lower end of their likely seat share. Between 150 and 200 is the most likely outcome.
You would need to see VERY very low tunout amongst Labour voters to go below 150.
To wander off this rather wearying topic, very wildly, does anyone have any knowledge of Chinese wine?
I like to drink a bottle of red in the evening. Without fail. Yes I’m an alcoholic but at least I’m consistent. So far in China I have managed to find decent if overpriced imported stuff, from Chile and Oz.
But, perhaps unsurprisingly, there isn’t any imported wine at 10,000 feet up the Jade Dragon Mountains on the high Tibetan frontier. But there IS a lot of… er… Chinese red wine.
Is any of it any good?? I have horrific memories of Egyptian red wine. I don’t want that experience again.
Maybe someone on the all-wise pb panel will be able to steer me in the right direction.
seant please note!
November 09, 2009
The EUSSR and other inappropriate comparisons
Alex Massie takes Janet Daley to task for comparing the EU with the Soviet Union (the evil of which Greg Hands writes about the today).
The ‘EUSSR’ thing is just one of the wholly inappropriate comparisons that often come up in debates.
Other classics are Bush equals Hitler, Israel equals Nazi Germany and Britain-under-Brown equals Zimbabwe-under-Mugabe. And last week, of course, we had David Wilshire comparing anger at MPs with the persecution of the Jews in WWII.
Every comparison devalues debate and, more importantly, cheapens the suffering of the people who did live under the USSR, Nazi Germany and Robert Mugabe.
Posted by Tim Montgomerie at 09:32 | Permalink
Oh and the other, ‘usual suspects’
Although now that Dave has gorn all soft on the EU I don’t suppose we’ll be getting the usual criticism.
186. I can’t agree with the idea of recruiting foreigners to do the actual sharp-end fighting.
If British national interests require British military intervention, it should be our own nationals doing the intervening.
If we can’t man an army with enough of our nationals on that basis, or it’s not important enough to hazard any of those nationals we can recruit, well, go figure.
We should not, in 2009, be relying on bl00dy sepoys.
And that is all Gurkhas are, in Labour’s mind. They might be terrifically brave, scary, and effective, but when all’s said and done, Labour sees them as expendable saps who aren’t fit to live in this country or receive a proper pension.
Saps and chinless wonders: the armed forces under Labour.
263 If he got the names wrong that is appalling. but looking at the letter it seems to me at least equally likely that he knew the right spelling and ust couldn’t get his hand to write it properly. It is worth looking at the letter and the graphologist’s comments.
Criticising Brown over the letter is legitimate.
Downing Street is stuffed with secretaries and PR staff, more than at any other time. They would put the letter in an envelope and have it delivered. But could anyone be bothered, or anyone dare, to tell Brown it was crap?
The letter sent had the mother’s name wrong and the soldier’s name wrong. The latter was scribbled out and the right name put in.
Surely with something so sensitive it would have been better to start again. To send it in that state has nothing to do with his eyesight and everything to do with insensitivity and lack of empathy for the soldiers doing his fighting.
JARHEAD - The Epilogue
Timeline : 5th June 2020. 0913am
Location : Tea Room, House of Commons, Westminster. London SW1.
Dramatis Personae. Mark Senior MP.
……………………………………………….
The new MP or to be precise the Additional Member of Parliament for Sussex and Surrey sat at an empty table in the Commons tea room and sprawled some new papers on the table. “A History of British Political Blogging” would be Marks second book following on from his magnus opus - “The Bendish-On-The-Wold By-Election and the 2014 General Election”
Mark turned to his notes for the epilogue of his new book, he smiled and turned his mind to those days a decade ago and some of the characters that made the blogging headlines so long ago :
Petra Smith - Elected the Independent MP for Peterborough in the 2015 election. Formerly called Peter Smith and best known as “Peter the Punter” in blogging circles and Princess Mona-Lose-Lose on the racetracks. He scooped a Euro-Millions jackpot of 125M Euros in 2013 and completed the cross gender operation the following year. Petra is a well regarded philanthropist in the field of oversized ladies stockings and related fastenings.
SeanT - In Bedford during a July 2010 book signing tour he was arrested at midnight on the Embankment after accosting an undercover female police officer. Subsequently charged with twelve murders Sean became known as the “Beast of Bedford” and following a celebrated Old Bailey trial was found guilty and sent to Broadmoor. There the self confessed “sex memoirist” is frequently visited by prison reform campaigner - Lord Palmer of Broxtowe.
Mike Smithson - Knighted for political services in 2014, Sir Michael Smithson stumbled on a significant improvement to the Auchentennach Hair Tonic and is now Professor of Folicular Medicine at North Utah University. Sir Michael sold PB.com to Lord Ashcroft for £750K in 2012.
The Jacobite Laird of Auchentennach. Won first prize and the show gold medal three years running at the Melton Mowbray World Pie Championships. Sold up in 2014 and together with Miss Crusty Top of 2013 is now believed to be sailing into the sunset. If alive the Laird is now thought to be 118. Rumours of a new ghost at Auchentennach Castle have as yet not been verified by the castles new owner - Marcus Wood, who keeps the fine tradition of pie making on the estate going.
Mark Senior MP looked up from his notes and was a little taken aback as the Prime Minister and his Deputy, the First Secretary of State paid for some drinks and sat on a table occupied by David Herdson MP, the Leader of the Commons.
Mark thought the PM was looking all his age, certainly ten years in Downing Street had seen the grey and thinning hair prevail and wrinkles too, and much the same could be said of his number two. Yes the Cameron and Clegg show had been at the top for ten years and following their latest general election victory last month perhaps they needed to take a little more care of their grooming.
Prime Minister Cameron took out a small blue bottle from his jacket pocket - Smithson’s Patent Auchentennach Hair Restorative - “We both need a little of this I think Nick”. There was laughter all round.
271 SeanT - I believe some Chinese wine is not too bad nowadays.
Perhaps you should take advantage of your dilemma, do some appropriate research, and pen an article for Decanter?
259 - As someone who once made a huge faux pas, writing a letter, I’m glad mine are checked.
How did the Gordon letter story morph into blaming his wife?
Is Samantha Cameron responsible for her husbands daft letter to Vaclav Klaus?
271 - Cabernet Sauvignon in particular.
They tend to be the product of the better more modern wineries.
I assume we have the delights of Gordon walking through Checkpoint Charlie later today?
It really should be Maggie… I wonder if she was invited?
222 Gabble so you managed to spot my deliberate mistake. Syllable is a word rarely used but a Prime Minister writing to the mother of a young man barely out of school whom he sent to war and therefore to die (although not intentionally) should at least ensure his letter is correct. I bet the Duke of Edinburgh managed to correctly name both mother and daughter.
My own handwriting is best described as being like a hen trying to walk across ice but if I am writing a formal letter then it is typed and only has the greeting and signature handwritten.
Do you not have any constructive defence to offer for the PM you support?
258. You’ve answered your own question there.
Maggie opposed the wall coming down so that would be a mite inappropriate.
Athough she could send her son.
Typical of Cameron’s luck, he has rather elegant handwriting.
Tim - R4 did give a balanced report about Latvia this morning. It didn’t whitewash their problematic history; nor did it turn into a polemic about Latvian $$. The entire European project entailed a compromise with many many many people with some level of Nazi past. It is a complex subject. I know you don’t do nuance, but your endless nasty insinuations about Conservative links with fascists is not just very low propaganda - it’s also a travesty of history.
282 - Utter rubbish.
282 So easy to go fishing for tim. He always comes to the surface for the least amount of bait…
Anecdote Alert: I’ve done enough civic Anglicanism over the years not be over awed by these occassions but something very odd indeed was going on in the Cathedral yesterday afternoon. Attendence definately up on a normal rememberance sunday for a service that wasn’t specifically remeberance related. Lots of people had there best funeral frocks on, a sort of civillian uniform, those bigger more outlandish poppies were popular.
Outside afterwards there seemed a most unBritish amount of hugging and touching going on between very straight laced families. Then a simply extraordinary scene which perhaps inaccurately reminded me of the oddity around the relics of St Terese of Lisieux.
A young man, say 30ish, started walking across the forcourt. Nothing actually identified him as service personel except some Khaki casual clothing and the fact he had a freshly bandaged below the knee amputation and was using crutches. After a sort of dazed pause the most extraordinary throng began moving forward offering to “help” to his acute embarssment. But they weren’t helping they were just touching him. The impluse to was to touch.
I don’t know what to make of it but it was weird. Almost as if all the **** that is going on economically and politically people needed to embrace a sign of honour, duty, sacrifice.
“it’s also a travesty of history.”
Don’t forget - for New Labour, history started in 1997. Whatever comes before then is fluid.
It was British policy from 1945 onwards that Germany should be partitioned. It was also British policy to oppose the Berlin Wall. I have yet to see anything that suggests that Mrs Thatcher changed British policy on either of these points.
283 - I thought the new angle was that the MEP in the Tory group campaigned to ethnically cleanse his country of its Russian minority.
218. Oracle. There were a couple of interesting moments in The Thick of It, this week. Apart from tim’s starring role, and of course “the wife of the PM who appears like a normal human being”, the whole plot revolved around the fact that the political agenda at the anuual conference of the party of government was being driven entirely by blog posts and twitter. Spooky…
Also, choice moment when the people’s champion points out to the minister and Tucker that they won’t be around much longer.
287.
273
If British national interests require British military intervention, it should be our own nationals doing the intervening.
Why? a soldier is a soldier, you point him/her in the direction of the fighting and off they go.
A professional, a true professional isn’t going to give you the problems you now have with many enlisted soldiers. No next of kin to house,feed, provide a variety of services for. A soldier whose not going to be wanting to go back to Colchester/Aldershot etc after six months, where the fighting is, thats home.
He will have signed a covenant with death, for money that’s all. No one will care when he dies, there’ll be no one weeping at his graveside, he took his risks, he lost the game.
283. Some of the much-revered ‘founding fathers’ of the EU had somewhat questionable political pasts, as indeed did its later champions e.g. Mitterand.
There are also some striking parallels - even continuity - between EU plans and ambitions for European integration of today, and those sketched out by the Nazis during the war.
McDoom being destroyed by newspaper smears. Hoist. Petard. Justice.
271. Chinese red wine.
When I was in Manchuria last year Chinese red was served with the posh dinner we had with the Chinese partners.
They put a slice of lemon in it.
Says it all really.
It was called “Chinese Wall”. And it was Chinese in origin. I assume it was called that because of where you distributed it after drinking.
Chinese restaurants in UK used to sell relabelled French stuff called Wan Fu. IIRC it was actually not that bad.
290 The most telling thing about The Thick Of It this week was the automatic reaction to see how they could smear the People’s Champion when she went off message.
So emblematic of New Labour.
294. yes, i thought about that this morning. My initial reaction to the story was sympathy for Brown and anger at a media that uses these sort smears. Then I thought of that painting when Acteon is devoured by his own hounds after Diana turns him into a stag and smiled to myself.
246 You answered your own question in your own sentence. It’s not about casualties on their own it’s about casualties to what purpose.
288 - I’d imagine Hurd would be invited, one of the few things he got right was facing down Thatchers oppostion to German reunification.
290 - what was tim’s role in The Thick of It that everyone keeps mentioning? Did I miss it?
“Quick lads! Our noble leader’s in trouble! We need someone to fight back by smearing a leader from 20 years ago!”
Thanks for the Chinese wine advice, guys. I also found this excellent article:
http://tinyurl.com/ybhpxr3
Sounds like the wine here is still pretty poor, and you have to pay enormous sums even to attain “quite nice” Cab Sauv.
And most of the acceptable brands cited are not in the supermarkets I have seen, anyway. Though as I say, to be fair, the supermarkets here are selling mainly to Lisu, Naxi, Bai, and Dulong hill people, who wear weird hats and pointy jerkins and practise swidden farming and yak herding and who probably aren’t looking for a decent Shiraz.
However Jancis Robinson does mention one red that is available here: Yunnan Rose Heart. Seems it might be sort of OK, ish, kinda in an oversweet way.
I may buy a bottle and report back.
297. These aren’t really smears, though, are they?
The letter does look scruffy and is error-strewn. Whether or not that reflects deliberate disrespect is not clear, but the lady who received it certainly considers herself insulted and it is easy to see why.
On the McPherson report standard of proof he is surely guilty ‘a disrespectful act is any act considered disrespectful by any person’ etc….
At best this shows Brown to be horrifically inept and somewhat insensitive.
The spelling story is becoming the story of the day. The biggest problem is that it is being told how Brown got the soldier’s name wrong and corrected it rather than start again. It will strike the public of someone who cannot be bothered.
From my perspective it comes across as if the writing of these letters is a chore, an item to be checked off a list. By writing the letter he ticked the item off his list and did not stop to think about what impact all the mistakes would have on the grieving recipient.
I can’t imagine Cameron would make the same mistake.
Nick Witchell [who I can't stand] said that he’d never seen so many at the Cenotaph as yesterday. He said it was 10 deep from 08:00.
The mood has really shifted.
292 Hugely callous attitude. Yes slightly naive 18 y.o lads can be attracted to the military especially due to the lack of other opportunities thanks to Labour’s destruction of the the British economy. However they are dying in a pointless war largely because the Government is not prepared to “fess up” it has made a costly mistake over Afghanistan at least this side of an election. And before the Tories on here get too smug no amount of extra troops or spending which we can’t afford will make this mission a success.
Looks like Labour will be antagonising Murdoch even more this week
“The most radical shakeup of sports broadcasting rights for more than a decade will trigger a backlash from sports governing bodies this week as events including the Ashes, Wimbledon and international football qualifiers are likely to be added to the list of those reserved for live coverage on free-to-air television.
Inspired by viewing figures of up to 11.8 million for Andy Murray’s fourth-round tie at last year’s Wimbledon, the whole of the tournament will be added to the list, rather than just the finals, and rugby union internationals in Wales, which can attract more than seven in 10 viewers, are also due to be included, according to sources close to the independent review led by the former FA executive director David Davies”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2009/nov/08/free-to-air-sport-shakeup
297, worth remembering how unpopular and disliked Blair was too. Brown slew the python, but then became the python himself.
[Can we get a third Metamorphoses reference in?]
“The Thick of It” is to stage 4 Labour what “Alan B’stard MP” was to the terminal years of Torydom.
I use “stage 4″ in the oncological sense, natch.
299. How was Thatcher wrong in opposing German reunification, tim?
The main immediate effect was that, since Germany borrowed rather than raising taxes to fund it, and printed money by converting Ostmarks to Dmarks at a stupid rate, their interest rates and inflation spiked, and therefore ours had to.
The early 90s recession was caused in large measure by German reunification. Had it remained two countries, both democracies (as she preferred), that wouldn’t have happened.
I didn’t notice any Berlin Wall coming down in America and triggering the credit collapse.
One struggles to identify any issue about which Thatcher was ever wrong. For Labouroids, that’s what still hurts.
Rat leaves sinking ship, non-shocker.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8350155.stm
286 “I don’t know what to make of it but it was weird. Almost as if all the **** that is going on economically and politically people needed to embrace a sign of honour, duty, sacrifice.”
The gap between how much respect the forces have got and how despised the political class is stretching to breaking point.
What will happen now, of course, is that everyone else who has lost someone in Afghanistan or Iraq will be contacted and asked about the letters they received from Brown, Blair and anyone else famous. They will all become footballs in some kind of get Gordon campaign. And all because the bloke wrote a letter by hand. It is a bit unseemly and unpleasant, if you ask me.
311: Another one bites the dust….
306. I am sure that nothing would delight the Tories more than to be able to say: We want out of Afghanistan.
Everyone knows the war is lost. No surprise there: it’s a Labour war: they are always pointless, and always lost. Moreover, the public mood has turned against the fighting, and it is very hard to see what kind of “victory” would alter perceptions.
So we all know we are pulling out soon and we all know the whole thing was a disaster, but it is simply and politically impossible for an Opposition to say this during a war, especially before an election.
The Lib Dems should, of course, jump at the chance.
271 SeanT
“Chan Bar Tin” will wet the whistle well.
292. Can you give any example of country that has survived as a serious international military player on the basis of wholly or largely mercenary armed forces?
Are we going to have mercenary sailors and RAF pilots and mechanics too?
All these mercenary recruits are going to come from third-world countries. Does this make them expendable?
What happens when they’re in the field in Afghnistan and the local warlords outbid you for their services?
303 - Do you seriously believe that there is even a chance that Brown was being deliberately disrespectful?
313: Welcome to politics and the media…unseemly and unpleasant is the name of the game.
310. The poll tax. Politically stupid, morally dubious, and not even that clever fiscally.
310 - The UK went into recession before German runification, dullard.
312 - One of my nuttier friends suggested that we could be heading to the point where a military coup was possible. I of course laughed the suggestion off.
317 - The Roman Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire etc etc etc. In fact, every Empire you could care to mention.
311 - Wavertree is going Lib Dem next election anyway.
307 - “rugby union internationals in Wales, which can attract more than seven in 10 viewers” - !!!
Now, I know the Welsh like rugby, and I like rugby, and I always enjoy watching Wales play (even though they’re the team I’d like to beat more than anyone else) - but 7 out of 10? Amazing.
321. Learn to read, tapeworm:
The early 90s recession was caused in large measure by German reunification.
320. You’re kidding, right? The poll tax was excellent. The parasites saw the justice in it, and they didn’t like it.
It was a great missed opportunity to jail a load of Labour voters for non-payment forever.
322 - Spookily, one of my friends in the armed forces said that he could see a military coup happening. Purely to get rid of Brown.
I wonder what odds I can get on Tim Collins being the next PM.
Morning all.
In what is a clear sign that I visit the Site too often, last night I dreamt about a poll being reported here…
311 - May be some betting value on the Lib Dems there. The suggestion for a 51 year old to quit is that she wants to start a job search now rather than waiting for May… so not too confident of a Labour hold.
Current best odds: Labour 4/6 (Ladbrokes), Lib Dem 11/8 (Paddys), Con 100/1 (Ladbrokes).
318 - The disrespect was not intentional - but that doesn’t matter
The failure to care enough to get it right is disrespectful irrespective of the intention
On the soldier story, I loved this line from Downing St as quoted by Pravda:
Brown “would never knowingly misspell” a name.
Denying things that haven’t been alleged is SO new Labour. I remember when Blair was asked to apologise for the Iraq war and the non-existence of WMDs. He always answered that he refused to apologise for overthrowing a brutal dictator. Of course, noone had ever asked him to, but it diverted the criticism and shut the interviewer up.
319 - This will be a compltely media led story though, as there is no way that the Tories or the Lib Dems or any other serious party will get involved with it. That will mean the papers having to keep it going by contacting people buried in grief to try to get a reaction from them. Not nice at all.
318. He’s well know to have expressed rather unflattering opinions re. the military in the past, so a degree of at least subconscious disrespect isn’t entirely fanciful. It’s the obvious lack of care and attention here that is the real problem though, so insensitive.
As for you finding this furore ‘unseemly’, well it’s a bit late to come over all prim and proper now. Politics is a rough game and Brown has played it rougher than most over the years.
306
I do not see it callous, to accept the purpose of a soldier is to kill the enemy, and in doing so, to risk being killed.
As for 18 year olds being driven into the armed forces, due to social conditions, yes that happens, but there are plenty who join because they want to be soldiers etc.
When I joined up, (aged 16) I wanted to, despite strong objections from my parents, my father signed the papers and threw them at me.
326 - I don’t think it is at all likely to be honest.
Just received an e-mail from the Permanent Secretary of the NI civil service Department I work for. In plain English it’s letting us know that there are going to be cuts especially in staff levels.
Lots of glum faces in the office here.
330 - No other parties or politicians do that do they? I mean answer a question that wasn’t asked.
325. The poll tax produced riots on the streets, it made martyrs out of silly lefties, it was bad PR for Tories everywhere, it alienated Scotland so badly the Union is still suffering the after-effects, and it helped bring down Thatcher herself.
It was one of those brilliant wheezes that was calamitous in practise. The defter smarter Thatcher of the mid80s, the Thatch who swatted the miners, would have seen the danger of the idea and said No way.
It was a crass and lethal mistake, setting aside the questionable morality. So yes, she made some bad decisions, especially towards the end. Unsurprisingly.
Gordon Brown has managed to get booed by D Day Veterans, and upset the mother of a dead soldier all within 6months, surely thats unprecedented for any PM?
332 - Politics is a rough game. I just think it’s a shame that the grief-stricken will be used in this way. If you don’t, that’s fine. We can agree to disagree.
319: Of course…but then when have the media ever been nice?
Live by the McBride, die by the McBride.
337. The masses were not ready to pay their share was why the poll tax failed.
Privatising the refuse collection would have been a much better way to go about it.
Oh dear not good for D Miliband.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/6510075/Serial-offenders-spared-jail-to-cut-crime.html
339. The grief-stricken haven’t been used - one of them came forward with the story. Your sympathy for them seems rather unconvincing if I may say so, compared to your sympathy to the man responsible for a decent part of their grief.
339 - Fortunately your party has never used the grief stricken, which reminds me, is this a good day to bury bad news?
338 The D-Day farce was awful - Obama Beach FFS, and Gordon muscles out the Queen who actually did stuff during the war along with Prince Phillip.
Gordon’s appearance at the Finance Mins meeting is just another example of him hogging the limelight when it’s completely inappropriate.
338 - Churchill led the country to victory in WW” and was booted out of office shortly afterwards. He was booed in Coventry on a number of occasions by verterans and thbose who had lived through the bombings. It happens and will happen more and more in the future, whoever is in charge. The British do things all the time now that they never used to do.
304 runnymede. I think it’s too far of a stretch to accuse the PM of deliberate disrespect. Why would he ??
Brown may be a lousy PM but I have no doubt that following the loss of his own child he is well aware of the impact it has on the surviving parents.
Also I think we should account for Brown’s poor eyesight - His hand writting is poor and he tends to write using a thick nib or felt tip so that he’s more able to discern his own hand.
On this issue we should cut the PM a little slack.
327. I often have wet dreams too.
334 I don’t think there’s any chance of it happening just that i can’t think of any other point in my lifetime when all the other institutions had so little respect.
342, good. Milipede’s a turd.
Gordon Brown is no Winston Churchill.
How has this been missed? A live action shot of the world’s fittest man - as he told radio listeners, or Mumsnet, or whichever easy ride media outlet it was a few weeks ago:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1226236/Why-Gordon-Brown-middle-aged-men-away-jogging-pants.html
See the ease at which he jogs; the look of total satisfaction on his face; and the way he looks so much more comfortable and athletic than that podgy Opposition leader below…
Sorry, I seem to have turned into Gabble.
275 Look, Brown is in denial. If he thinks he is up to being PM he thinks he is up to producing a holograph letter which doesn’t need checking by someone else. Because he is blind the letter looks ok to him because he can’t detect the errors he has made. Why not? Because he is blind. And if he thinks he doesn’t need help how can anyone force him to get the letter checked? He is PM and the boss of everyone round him and a telephone thrower.
It is bad the letter went out, but it is appalling that the Sun has turned it into a political football.
As Wittgenstein more or less said, we must portray the prime minister as being as ghastly as he is, but not more ghastly.
339 - Politics is a rough game but journalism is a truly vile business.
Hunter S Thompson had it right, “Journalism is not a profession or trade. It is a cheap catch-all for ****-offs and misfits - a doorway to the backside of life, a filthy, p***-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo cage.”
317
I think it very unlikely that they would be ‘outbid’ by the local warlord.
There is not a problem with, ‘technical services’ non-combatants anyway. Governments should start to think of the military shorn of much of the sentimentality that seems to be clinging to them.
The military are just a service like any other, their purpose to provide you with defence, you should buy that service, from as efficient a provider as you can.
Sixty five percent of military spending in this country is spent on the service personnel and their families. Its time to think of another way.
343 - The grief stricken will now be used because that is bow it works. The Mirror will search out those who will say nice things about the letters they got from Brown, Blair etc. The Mail, the Express and the Sun will search out more who are angry.
I have no sympathy at all for Brown. I have every sympathy for those who are now going to be fielding phone calls from and answering the door to journalists looking for a story.
347. I see no reason to cut Brown any slack at all given what a thoroughly nasty piece of work he has shown himself to be over the years.
Moreover, this is a political discussion site and I think it is perfectly reasonable to discuss this issue in terms of what it tells us about public perceptions of the PM.
323. Nope. The challenge was “wholly or largely mercenary armed forces”, and your answer makes the point.
The Roman army used local auxiliaries ad hoc, but the backbone was a standing force of thirty-odd legions whose recruits had to be Roman citizens. By the time this changed they were in decline.
The French army - under Napoleon anyway - didn’t use significant numbers of foreign troops. He had contingents from foreign allies, but these were the national armies of states he was able to manipulate into serving alongside him. Most - Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, Nassau, Naples, Spain, the Netherlands etc - subsequently changed their allegiance and fought against him. So they clearly weren’t mercenaries on the French payroll, they were the forces of allied states.
At the point when British reliance on Empire troops was at its height, er, well, that would be WW2, i.e. exactly when the Empire was on its way out as a serious military player.
Like I said - if you can’t man the army, you aren’t a player.
If the only plausible candidate is from 2,000 years ago, it says it all.
351 - But it even happened to Churchill is my point.
FPT.
Morning all. Anybody seen their local BNP Remembrance wreath? We have one councillor, so they were entitled to one.
Anyway, their message reads:
“In memory of the fallen, and the betrayed”
344 - What party is that?
352 “Staff at the sportswear firm’s flagship London store said this old style, with an Air Max logo, has not been on sale for about five years.
It’s the sort of outfit that morbidly obese people turn up in at the local leisure centre, to hide all their bulbous bits.
And to top it all, there’s that clunking watch. But the problem with this sight of Gordon, the rookie jogger, runs much deeper than his choice of attire.
Although this new-found regime is said to be part of a fitness programme intended to prepare him for the six-month run-in to next year’s General Election, the unflattering photo has the complete opposite effect and makes him seem horribly unfit.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1226236/Why-Gordon-Brown-middle-aged-men-away-jogging-pants.html#ixzz0WMSJHbQ0
The jibe about gym newbies made me LOL - so true.
354: Perfect for toilets then…
On the topic of Brown’s writing I heard a representation from a completely blind barrister who said he had to prepare properly spelt documents for court on a daily basis. He urged listeners not to make allowances for Brown’s disabilities.
352 You just know that after seieng that picture of Gordon jogging, the PR people at Slazenger had that sinking feeling - an association from which the brand will probably never recover…
361 - Sorry, not your Party, The Labour Party.
Ah yes, the Party who also used the invasion of Afghanistan as cover to steal money from my parents and lots of other people.
358 - What about WW1? What about the Indian Army?
I assume that you are opposed to the Ghurka regiments then and would like to see them disbanded.
“But it even happened to Churchill is my point.”
My point is that Churchill had to deal with the sodding Blitz. Brown’s catcalls were entirely due to him.
358 runnymede. I look forward to you holding future Conservative ministers to the same standard. But frankly I ain’t holding my breath on that one.
364 It’s okay - I believe Mike Ashley owns them
I have every sympathy for Brown regarding his handwriting and poor eyesight, but where this comes undone in ‘lettergate’ is that he knew he had made a mistake regarding Jamie’s name but instead of starting again, he just scribbled it out.
354. Sir Norfolk - quite right; but one of New Labour’s achievements (sic) has been to drag the business of politics and government down into the same sewer inhabited by the worst elements of the press.
They cannot then complain if they suffer attacks of a similar kind to those they themselves have happily indulged in these many years.
347 Jack W - Any thoughts on Liverpool Wavertree following Jane Kennedy’s announcement? This is a seat which used to look 100% rock solid Labour, but the 2005 notionals don’t look insurmountable for the LibDems.
re 190 well at least Brown had a black tie this year so much better than last year. Someone should tell Cameron that navy blue is just not good enough, and as for Clegg’s spotted number, words fail me.
158 In such a scenario, the BNP would also pull potential voters from Conservatives and Lib Dems.
289 Presumably in return for the Russians attempting to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population, when they had the chance.
Iain Dale suggests that Brown does not give his letters for anybody to check before sealing in a envelope. I’d suggest he change this practice, and am surprised at it really.
The Oncoming Storm
I’ve heard similar from Civil Servant friends in London. Cuts are already happening. Redundancies are inevitable.
355. Why not? Happens all the time. The local warlord just makes it clear that deserters won’t be killed, especially if they bring their officers and some equipment along as booty.
He doesn’t require any money.
374 I don’t believe that Gordon would address the envelopes himself - not in a million years.
364 - Well Slazenger’s parent company is Sports Direct, and back in July they had a 91% drop in profits.
I wonder how long Gordon’s been wearing slazenger for?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8153274.stm
358
You are still going to have a ‘British’ army, just like there is a ‘French’ army.
Afghanistan, requires I believe a, ‘permanent’ force, for a Foreign Legion as Algeria did for the French.
Those men would fight there and live there, for an initial four years, with the option, to take a lump sum, or remain and add to it.
The advantage would be, the taxpayer would only pay for them, no one else!
Officers and senior NCO’s would be British and attached to them for a minimum of one year, with the option to re-sign with financial inducements.
371 - Firstly, you clearly have very little appreciation of the murky historic relationship between the press and politicians. Secondly (and accepting I feel a little sympathy with Brown over handwriting-gate), the real losers here are likely to be families of the bereaved who are going to have a fresh round of the self-righteous hypocrites of the British Press crawling over them again. That is the point Southam is making, with which I agree.
372. Are any of the bookies offering odds on Wavertree?
“Cuts are already happening. Redundancies are inevitable.”
My own department has a budget cut of 10% for next year and has let it be known it will have to let people go.
Hence hearing Brown talking about how Labour aren’t cutting is generally met here with hollow laughter. Those who just won’t vote Conservative for whatever reason are indicating they simply won’t vote.
380 - Whilst I agree with you about the murky history between press and politicians, I do feel labour have taken it to a new level.
337. Everyone pays the same for a TV licence. Everyone pays the same for Road Tax. Everyone pays the same for a passport.
There is nothing unique (or wrong) about a State Tax charged at a flat fee. The question is one of affordability.
If it had been introduced - gradually - with two or three bands over several years I do wonder if it still might be around now in some form today. However, Thatcher played very poor politics; she insisted on in coming into full-force straight away.
The trouble with the poll tax was:
(1) It made millions of new people liable to pay it - instantaneously - and;
(2) Councils used it as an excuse to raise revenue - making it expensive
I think point (1) was the main driver of the riots.
For certain freeloading groups of people I very much doubt they would have been willing to pay a new tax set at *any* level.
352.
Hilarious…. What a saddo !
Mind you he did say on GMTV last month “Me unfit ? - I’m one of the fittest people around”
Around where exactly? The local nursing home for the over nineties !
If it wasn’t so sad the bloke would be ALMOST funny !
347 - Jack - I thought the most interesting thing about the copy of the letter I saw briefly on the news this morning was that it appeared to be written in felt tip - yet you’re the first person who I’ve notice mention it. Interesting that you also know the reason.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of ripping Gordon to bits over his scruffiness (and I probably broadly agree with you on this) I think the intersting thing that we should take from this is the country’s readiness to beat Gordon with any stick that comes to hand. The country loathes him more than it loathed any prime minister I can remember.
And, as this is a betting site, to move on to the betting implications: I would suggest that what we learn frmo this is that Labour can expect to lose more seats than simple Baxtering of the polls would suggest; anti-Labour voters will walk across hot coals to express their anger at Gordon and there will be a significant tactical shift against Labour.
376
I wouldn’t want to go too far into it, but there are people, who’ll have a particular reason for joining up, that’ll make that very unlikley.
381 - ladbrokes do
Labour 4/6
Liberal Democrats 11/10
Conservatives 100/1
“I think point (1) was the main driver of the riots. ”
It was - a bunch of people who had been able to escape paying the Rates suddenly found they had to pay up for a change.
The riots did not get rid of the poll tax - it was number 2 on your list that did, as the middle class were hit badly.
Apparantly Gang Rape is now supposed to be called Multi-Perpetrator Rape.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1226321/PC-brigade-ban-police-saying-gang-rape-emotive.html
382: It’s Browns psyche again. Cuts are bad. Cuts are for tories. I cannot cut. I daresay a few minsters are probably just ignoring that and trimming budgets as much as they can.
I’m beggining to feel sorry for Brown. He’s just deluded and awful and in such a position illfitted to him.
But then I think about labour as a whole..who put him there. I don’t feel sorry anymore.
381 Goupillon - Yes, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes. Best odds are:
Labour 4/6 Ladbrokes
LibDem 11/8 PP
380. Yes yes, of course the endless and vicious smear operation of New Labour is nothing new and all governments and parties have always done the same thing….and of course we should all feel sorry for poor Gordon, the man of the moral compass….and we should all be horrifed at what might now happen to the bereaved (or at least pretend to be).
Give us a break.
381 - As posted earlier, best odds on Wavertree now: Labour 4/6 (Ladbrokes), Lib Dem 11/8 (Paddys), Con 100/1 (Ladbrokes). I’d suggest there’s some (though not much) value on the Lib Dems there.
373 RN. Liverpool is a weird political entity. For decades the Lib Dems have flattered to deceive in national politics there whilst being hugely successful in the city locally. Wavertree looks vunerable but a nagging doubt persists, not least that may come from a slight resurgence from the city Conservatives. I’d suggest there are easy constituency options than Wavertree and I certainly haven’t placed a button on the outcome todate.
358/366 Successful armies tend to attract foreign soldiers.
Louis XIV’s army contained huge numbers of Swiss, Scots, and Irish. The Spanish Army, in the Sixteenth Century, was mostly made up of Italians, Germans, and Flemings.
WRT the Roman army, half of the them weren’t Roman citizens, and even among the Roman citizen element of the army, only a minority were Italian by 100 AD.
396: nothing like a bit of pillaging…
re 271 Sean when I was in Lanzhou the local stauff from the Gansu provence was fairly drinkable. At least I could knock back enough to avoid embarrassing my hosts and drink them under the table at the same time.
Gordon’s spokesman has gone the whole hog with his apology - ‘PM is mortified’.
Clearly Alistair has been in touch and told them to great the whole humble pie.
393 - I’m not a Labour supporter, Runnymede. I just don’t think Labour are evil or that their opponents (myself included) are pure. It may comfort you to think that, which is fine - whatever helps you sleep at night.
394/395 Thanks.
398 great = eat
Thanks TSE I should have looked under L for Liverpool. It looks a likely LD gain but 11/10 is not very good value.
367 - And Churchill was still booed and still heavily defeated at an election. You are saying he did not deserve it, but he still got it. And these days, the British are far less deferential so it is bound to happen a lot more.
373. Blast! You have unpicked my perfect storm!
Why do you think that would *necessarily* be the case?
Could the Labour vote not simply fracture in several directions with thousands more staying at home?
Hilarious someone in the office commented on the picture of Brown jogging “Maybe Brown is training for the London Marathon”
He couldn’t even run around a chocolate Marathon without tripping up … Useless idiot !
395 - I’d have agreed with you until now. But do you not think Kennedy’s retirement is telling? She wasn’t really caught up in the main wave of the expenses scandal (though nor was it great for her) and she’s only 51. It does rather seem as if she has decided to give herself six months to make job applications.
BTW..a bit late I know…Kevin Macguire was awful on TIGNFY on friday night. One joke maybe? The show itself is looking more and more tired as well.
If Shadsy’s about, thanks for putting the odds up for Colchester, where I’m amused to see Labour have as much chance of taking the seat as the greens at 100/1
Could you price up Bassetlaw for me, my sources are telling me it will probably go Tory for the first time in a very long time.
There must be something in the water today - police officer who left dogs to die in car has pleaded not guilty to causing unnecessary suffering.
WTF?
tim
The Today piece you linked on Latvia and the Tories was not balanced.
The massacre of Jews in 1941 in the copse at Rumbula predated the formation of the Latvian Waffen SS in 1943. The memorial ceremonies for the Latvian Legion, permitted by the Latvian government led by the For Fatherland and Freedom Party were totally unconnected with the Rumbula or any other Jewish massacre.
The BBC have played a usual broadcasting trick of damning by false association.
This is not to say that Latvian nationals had no blood on their hands in relation to the killing of Latvian Jews by partisans prior to the formation of the The Latvian Legion.
In the trial of Eichmann the prosecuting Attorney General answered the Presiding Judge’s question on this issue by referring to primary German sources:
Stahlecker says that, after the partisans had to be disarmed, the internal purging operations ceased in any case. It was much more difficult, he says, to organize purging operations and pogroms in Latvia. It is true that synagogues were burned, and that about 400 Jews were killed, but since the population was soon quietened down, further pogroms could not be organized. “As far as possible, it was documented, both in Kovno and in Riga, by means of films and photographs, that the first spontaneous executions of Jews and communists were carried out by Lithuanians and Latvians.”
With Russian, Latvian, Jewish and German historians all offering different accounts of the atrocities committed in the Baltic States during WWII, it might be best if the media concentrated only on known facts not false attributions.
The facts themselves are horrific enough. To quote again from testimony at the Eichmann trial:
At the end of the report there is a detailed account relating to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, about executions, as if he was talking of packages of sardines or salt herring - so many Jews, so many Communists, and the total. Please observe: In Lithuania 80,311 Jews, 860 Communists - together 81,171. In Latvia 30,025 Jews, 1,843 Communists - together 31,868. Only in Estonia did the Nazis succeed in executing more Communists than Jews. In all, this report includes the murder of 118,430 Jews and 3,387 Communists. To this he adds the Jews murdered in Lithuania and Latvia in the pogroms - 5,500, the Jews who were executed in the old Russian zone - 2,000, and Communists and partisans - 48. He arrives at a total 122,445.
Is it better to engage or to disassociate? That is the real question. I believe the Tories have the right answer.
Gordon would not be receiving anything like this level of abuse if he had
a) Called a GE in 2007 and won
b) Had a leadership election in the Labour party and won.
c) Been a semi-competent PM.
My sympathy is short in supply.
260.
If HamiltonNat is anywhere near right (and he has a pretty good track record) then is there any value in the SNP here?
William Hill - Glasgow NE by-election
Labour 2/9
SNP 3/1
John Smeaton - Jury Team 50/1
Conservatives 100/1
Liberal Democrats 100/1
Greens 100/1
Mikey Hughes - Independent 100/1
Solidarity 100/1
Scottish Senior Citizens 200/1
Scottish Socialist Party 200/1
BNP 300/1
I quite like the idea of a Poll Tax.
As long as it is linked to an ability to pay and there is some allowance for multi-payer households, I think it would be a more equitable system.
Come on Labour, what have we got to lose?
re 385 Casino I pay £35 for car tax (VED). I think that’s a lot less than “everyone”
380 - Precisely.
396
I don’t understand this attitude they have to be British, its worked for the French, it can work for us.
Military thinking in this country is sterile, it seems to be in a box, and if you dare think outside it, you are criticised, still whats new in that?
413 - What you’re saying there is that you quite like the idea of a poll tax as long as it isn’t a poll tax. Thanks for that.
372. I know the seat, the Lib Dems have a real chance in Liverpool Wavertree; I’d personally price them up as about a 5-4 shot or so, Labour might be marginal favourites, but no more than that.
387 Cookie. Whilst not common knowledge it certainly wasn’t a state secret that Brown writing is very poor and has been complained about by ministers and civil servants receiving a Brown ditty.
I certainly agree with you that Brown has become a magnet for all manner of ills. Most deserving, some clearly not. Accordingly Labour are suffering disproportionatley and never having been a fan of Baxter I’d also agree with you that we’re in for some very odd looking results.
413: Lol..gabble saying we should have a poll tax..
Sorry, but the rights and wrongs of it don’t matter. It’ll be political suicide for any party.
347. For once I agree with you Jack W.
But, unfortunately for him, it just feeds into existing perceptions of Brown a little too well.
358. India was ruled for over 200 years with miniscule amounts of British troops for a country of over 300 million people.
399. What a silly post.
Who said anything about ‘evil’? I’ve used words like disreputable, insensitive and inept about Brown, and referred to Labour smear campaigns as ‘disgusting’ - a judgement I suspect most people would share. In that context I have no sympathy with Brown’s position and indeed I consider he has brought this on himself.
Meanwhile you and other left-minded posters seem to be more interested in getting on your high horses about the media for something they haven’t even done yet, and spilling crocodile tears over the fate you presume will befall bereaved military families.
413 - I wish they would also link in a factor to usage of Council services. I pay just a 3grand a year, to have my bins collected once a week.
Which works out roughly a cost of 60quid per collection to me.
366. A handful of Indian units served in Flanders, but to make a case that a mercenary army is a plausible option, you’d need to show that the majority of the WW1 fighting had been borne by Indian and other non-British units (meaning the latter didn’t really need to exist).
Just being on a payroll somewhere doesn’t count. In WW2 the Indian Army comprised two million men, but only 10 fighting divisions. The other 95% of its numbers were at depots, doing nothing.
If they count, then we must also include the Home Guard and the ARP services in the tally of British forces. If so, suddenly the Empire troops aren’t a numerical majority any more.
Those armies the Commonwealth fielded that individually were mostly Commonwealth mostly failed - Malaya 1941-2, for example.
I like Gurkhas, but we shouldn’t be raising more of them. If we can’t make a case for putting our own nationals in harm’s way, we shouldn’t be exploiting the economic desperation of poor people and inducing them to take the risks for us.
If something’s “not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier”, to paraphrase Bismarck, then the question should not be “where can we rent someone else’s grenadier?”, it should be “why risk anyone’s?”
If mercenaries are such a good idea, why aren’t the military calling for it?
422 - You get a bit more than bin collection. I personally think if we are going to have two tier local government then have two tier local taxation. Push Council tax as the primary funding mechanism for borough and districts, and then maybe a local sales tax as a means of funding counties.
422. You’ll be using all the free nursery stuff soon enough
407. You’re right on this. Maguire was crap but the show itself could benefit from a new regular presenter. The Beeb have become obsessed by guest presenters (Buzzcocks is another). Some like Kirsty Young on Friday have poor comic timing and bring down the whole show.
413. *SPLUTTERS INTO COFFEE*
Wow. Well, if you are serious Gabble, I commend you.
416. My understanding is that, yes, it is a tax on each head of the populace but that doesn’t mean to say it couldn’t be banded according to ability to pay.
407 Sir NP. It’s certainly a useful straw in the wind. I’m still a tad cautious on Wavertree but might be tempted by slightly more meaty odds. Compared to my hobby horse Watford it’s a no brainer !!
Whether or not the Poll Tax was the biggest political mistake by the Thatcher Govt is probably beyond dispute as it finished her off.
The most stupid mistake with the longest most expensive consequences was the removal of kitchens from schools and the end of nutritional standards in school meals.
A policy we’ll still be paying for in 50 years time.
410 - You are right, by the time the Latvian Legion was formed most of Latvias Jews had been murdered.
Around half by Latvian irregulars who volunteered for the units celebrated by the Tories allies.
420. Native acquiescence.
429. Gordon has learned from that - he hasn’t introduced a new policy since 2008 incase the public don’t like it
runnymede is bang on. Whenever any of us start feeling sorry for the *human pig*, sorry, Gordon Brown (cf obscure Chinese reference upthread) we have to remember what form he has himself in dirty politics.
His government ran a covert but quasi-official smear department, inside Number 10 Downing Street (therefore on our sixpence) and this Department of Smears was planning to spread false, abohrrent and disgusting sexual and medical rumours about the WIVES of Tory politicians.
Brown surrounded himself with these vermin - with the McBrides of his world. They got him into office. If the PM now gets thrown into the privy under the imperial palace, like Lady Chi, then the word *karma* seems not inappropriate.
424 - I do get a bit more than bin collection, but not much more. But hopefully the next government will look properly at an equitable funding solution for Local Govt.
425 - True, though sadly, I’ve already started looking at prep schools already.
410 - In addition, it seems your MEP ally also campaigned for the ethnic cleansing of Latvia less than a decade ago.
358. AIUI 90% of forces on both sides of the Indian mutiny - were Indian troops.
426: It needs more than that. Merton is deadweight. Hislop has his moments still, but needs someone to bounce off.
413. Making it a per capita tax does link it to ability to pay.
In any case, I don’t see why ability to pay should apply. If I go into M & S and see a sweater I like, I don’t see why I should pay more or less for it than the next guy based on my ability to pay. It costs what it costs and if I don’t like it I go to a cheaper shop or I vote for a thriftier council.
The objection to the poll tax was utterly, monstrously immoral. It amounted to a demand, with violence, that some people should fund all the others.
OT If you missed this - Jeremy is on top form.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article6907747.ece
433 - Unfortunately Local Gvt Finance has become a third rail in British Politics.
Afternoon all
Re: 423 - Interesting, I believe the Germans generally regarded the Australians as the best hand-to-hand fighters they ever had and, along with the Kiwis under Sir Bernard Freyberg, performed heroically in North Africa.
The Australian performance in the Pacific theatre is in some ways less menorable though the struggle along the Kokoda Trail in 1942 was a key element in blunting the Japanese in New Guinea. The Australian dock workers do not perhaps do so well.
On-topic, I don’t see Labour down to 120 seats or anything like that. I think the floor for them is around 175-180 and that is dependent on the SNP performing well in central Scotland otherwise around 200-210 looks the bottom for me. That’s a 1983 performance in terms of seats on a similar if not slightly lower vote.
Re; 422 - there is NO fair method for local taxation - the best anyone can hope for is the least unfair.
Southam Observer. “Churchill led the country to victory in WW2 and was booted out of office shortly afterwards.”
To be an utter, utter pedant. No, he didn’t, and no, he wasn’t.
436 Deayton used to be a good foil for both. Merton I like although maybe he has become a little more lazy and predictable recently. Hislop is still excellent.
193 - my experience is very very similar, watching it happen in my neck of the woods.
423 - The Indian Army in India. Ditto the Army units in most of the African colonies. Below officer level they were almost exclusively manned by locals - and that was the case from the mid-19th century onwards.
Am I the only one who uses a keyboard even when writing personal letters to close friends and relatives, topping and tailing them in manuscript of course?
Why doesn’t Brown do this? Why does he insist on using a marker pen which in itself is quite extraordinary? It surely can’t be on account of his reportedly failing eyesight, since this makes his handwriting, aka untidy scrawl, more not less difficult to read. Is it perhaps a hopeless attempt to conceal his very poor spelling skills?
Doesn’t he realise that by using a keyboard, this overcomes both problems - letters can be prepared in as large a font size as required and reduced to normal size before printing and the spell checker would help overcome the fact that our Prime Minister has serious problems in that department.
The third major advantage of a keyboard is that the doubtless supremely talented
typistspersonal assistants employed by No.10 can probably type faster than Brown can dictate.Is he just a stubborn old fool in not realising this?
423
The military will never call for them, it would seem like an admission of failure.
It would have to be a political decision, overiding the military, so would require a lot of courage, so can’t see it happening.
Unlike the French signing up would take place at British Embassies, not the UK. Previous military experience would be preferable, and reasonable English would be required.
A lot of US Army who’d done time in Afghanistan would probably sign up etc. so you’d be getting trained soldiers on the cheap.
Comparing these troops with the Commonwealth soldiers who were overrun in SE Asia in WW2 isn’t a valid comparison.
“Hislop is still excellent.”
He does relish having lefties like Mark Steel on. It’s the only place on the Beeb where their abhorent views are held up.
437 I never understood what was wrong with the poll tax - it seemed perfectly sensible, I doubt that the waste/use of local services/street lighting etc is much different between peeps.
I pay £3k a year for my bin to be emptied too. How is that reasonable?
423. “In WW2 the Indian Army comprised two million men, but only 10 fighting divisions. The other 95% of its numbers were at depots, doing nothing. ”
I think we’ve discussed this before. The vast majority of Indian Army troops were deployed on internal security duties.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say India was being held by the British at the point of a sword but by 1942/1943 the population was restless, mutinous and clamouring for independence.
None of this was necessary.
India should have become the first non-white dominion but the politics were played poorly by the British in the 1920s and 1930s following WWI and Amritsar. They should have coopted Gandhi into the British Administration and progressively reduced land taxation.
If this had happened India could have developed gradually into a much more stable democracy with the Queen remaining head of state.
Counter-history: one does wonder how a Churchill led Conservative Government would have handled India post-WWI in 1946/1947?
I’m inclined to believe that he’d have ballsed it up - not entrenched the Government of India out and instead tried to reassert control - and been forced out in ignominy in 1949/1950 after several years of heavy fighting, civil disorder and domestic bankruptcy - Palestine style.
353 Constan Trader. But Brown could and did correct the errors he had made. He corrected a name in his letter, when it is obvious to everyone, he should have re-written the letter,even if all his other mistakes were repeated.Near blindness would normally make people more, rather than less, sensitive to suffering.
Lettergate now number 2 news on UK Google OVERALL.
Extraordinary how Labour manage to turn moderate hiccups into fullblown debacles, almost every time. I guess having the Sun agin you don’t help.
440. Australian participation in WW2 is less uniformly glorious than often claimed. Like everyone else’s, some Ockers did well (Tobruk) and some ran away (Malaya). Australia suffered about 24,000 casualties in WW2 of which 1/3 were in battle with the Japanese and 1/3 were among PoWs of the Japanese.
We still haven’t had an example of a mainly-mercenary army that worked as intended, even if one allows the dubious example of Rome from 2,000 years ago.
With the poll tax one does have to wonder how much was revenge driven for Thatcher crushing the miners strike earlier in the 80s.
438 - SeanT still has plenty to learn. But hasn’t Clarkson been writing that article for the last 10 years?
Test
271 Sean T I drank some reasonable Yunnan red wine in Kunming. It was a bit fruity and slightly sweet but perfectly palatable. There was a tendency though for them to try to mix it with Sprite. Apparently this was seen (8 or 9 years ago) as the height of sophistication.
454: He’s been spot on over the last 10 years.
446. Comparing these troops with the Commonwealth soldiers who were overrun in SE Asia in WW2 isn’t a valid comparison.
Why not?
Why would it be beneficial to have ex-US troops, who’ve trained with different weapons, in UK ranks? How would they make out walking around Helmand like our guys instead of flying around like they’re used to? They’d quit as soon as they started losing - much like Malaya 1942, when even the Gurkhas ran away.
According to Wiki:
In the First World War the Indian Army saw extensive service including:
* Western Front
* Battle of Gallipoli
* Sinai and Palestine Campaign
* Mesopotamian Campaign, Siege of Kut
* East Africa, including the Battle of Tanga
Participants from the Indian subcontinent won 13,000 medals, including 12 Victoria Crosses. By the end of the war a total of 47,746 Indians had been reported dead or missing; 65,126 were wounded.
[snip...]
Particularly notable contributions of the Indian Army during [World War II]:
* Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres of World War II
o East African campaign
o North African campaign
+ Operation Compass
+ Operation Battleaxe
+ Operation Crusader
+ First Battle of El Alamein
+ Second Battle of El Alamein
o Anglo-Iraqi War
o Syria-Lebanon campaign
o Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
o Italian campaign
+ Battle of Monte Cassino
* Battle of Hong Kong
* Battle of Malaya
* Battle of Singapore
* Burma Campaign
o Battle of Kohima
o Battle of Imphal
About 87,000 Indian soldiers lost their lives during this conflict. Indian soldiers won 30 Victoria Crosses during the Second World War. (See: Indian Victoria Cross recipients.)
448 - Don’t you have a fire service or libraries where you live?
451 The entire population of Britain seems to be just itching for an excuse to go up to Brown and say “You’se spilt my pint…yer bastard…”
437 - Better to abolish as much indirect taxation as possible. A simpler tax system is more difficult to fiddle. It also means fewer departments, staff involved in collecting and enforcement, less buildings to heat/maintain, fewer staff numbers to pay, fewer pensions, etc.
As an example abolishing road tax and sticking a penny (or so) on fuel saves on administering road tax, saves Joe Public the nausea of road tax, high mileage cars pay more, not driving your car costs you zero, no more road tax enforcement teams, less court time, less police time, no-one can avoid paying.
Every tax should be looked at the same way. A Flat tax is the way to go - but all those Tax consultants would be out of work.
452
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood
try this guy. Certainly worked for him !
John R “We still haven’t had an example of a mainly-mercenary army that worked as intended”
William of Orange’s.
447. You forget the refuge that is The News Quiz. Which makes me wonder, are there no centre or right wing comedians?
461 And just think that’s what McBride did to Guido’s Guiness
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2009/11/06/afghanistan-a-declining-britain-starts-to-looks-for-the-exit/
“What, then, is really behind this? I regret it deeply, but it is now becoming obvious: It is British decline. A country with a deficit as severe as Britain’s (the worst of the leading economies) and a monstrous pile of national debt will struggle to play a disproportionately large role in international affairs. There is the simple reality of costs and affordability, but this goes well beyond the economic impact of the country struggling with a worse recession than its competitors. The impact is also cultural and psychological.
Britain being “skint” is forcing Britons to start considering what a much more limited role in global affairs might mean. For now, it looks as though that will involve more immersion in the EU and its institutions, less spending on defense and quite modest ambitions. The British politics of decline are back.”
Hurrah, for the glorious Labour government. What an achievement by them. How wonderful they have been.
429. Europe finished her off. Not the poll tax.
Had she survived into 1991/1992 I’m convinced she’d have backpedalled and banded it as an election approached.
tim, do you not see how Waffle $$ is turning into a bad story - for Labour. I know you are a sinister piece of work, but you always strike me as quite astute.
Clearly your antennae aren’t working on this one. Banging on - and on - about the Latvians makes you and Labour seem obsessive, cranky, eerie and boring. And it adds to the sense that Labour are desperate to smear Tories any way they can. Even to the extent of insulting entire nations if it helps dear Gordon.
Indeed I note that most Labourites have now given up on this story, probably sensing the diminishing returns and the real risk of a backlash. The Guardian confessed in an editorial, a few days ago, that “maybe David Miliband had gone too far”. So some lefties do get it, apparently.
But hey, don’t mind me, carry on if it pleases you.
453. But with the poll tax, Thatcher exposed herself to her enemies. That was the gross political error, an error she wouldn’t have made earlier in her premiership, I reckon.
OK now I am off for an evening stroll around Shangri-la. That’s if I don’t fall down dead from altitude sickness. 10,000 feet. Hm.
446 What is this total utter sh*te about a mercenary army. We don’t have an empire - why the f*ck would we need any of this if we weren’t getting involved in neo-con insanity around the world.
Regarding Brown’s dress style just look at the piece of foliage Tessa Jowell has on Daily Politics.
465 You’re right there - they had a good 10 mins on Tory referendum betrayal this week.
461 - The barman at cloud bar in Manchester Hilton summed it up wonderfully for me on Saturday.
The problem with Brown isn’t that he’s unpopular, Blair and Thatcher were unpopular too, the problem for Brown is that no one respects him anymore, whereas with Thatcher and Blair we knew they might be nuts, but we still had respect for them
465 - that programme is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. It is actually just champagne socialists just sitting around and sneering about stuff.
434 I think you have a very childish view of Eastern European history, since 1939. You see it simply as a means of having a go at the Conservative Party.
458
There wouldn’t be a problem, the French have managed it since 1831 I’m sure we could too, soldiers are soldiers. The difference is these men, like the FFL would be an elite force, based in and totally committed to fighting in Afghanistan and Afghanistan alone.
454.
SeanT is infinitely funnier than Clarkson.
Charlie Brooker is funnier than both of them:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/11/charlie-brooker-gordon-brown
469 - I generally only respond once the Tories on here bring up the story, but the fact that the leader of the Conservative group is surrounded by media minders and not allowed to be interviewed by himself suggests they know they’ve mad a mistake and are trying to hold the group together until the election.
465: Comedy, much like rock music though, is a reaction against the establishment. I wouldn’t expect them to be right-wing (cue Jim Davison comments).
But, like with music, the heart of comedy is seeping out. Moral indigantion is winning, which is a shame.
471 Is that one of those aloha garlands
467. Labour hates Britain, the British and Britishness. They are probably pleased we are in decline once again. That was probably their aim from the start.
But the British have only themselves to blame, they voted these c*nts in. And then Labour ruined the country just like they always do.
Tsk.
OK. Really off now. Zah jien.
462. Would you approve of a flat Local Income Tax to replace the 8-band Council Tax, then?
457 - I always find multi-millionaires whinging about how awful their lives are a bit tedious. But each to his own I suppose.
“Charlie Brooker is funnier than both of them”
Brooker thinks he is the funniest person ever. He’s not. That article was spectacularly poor, like most of his stuff.
Is it me or is the Telegraph the only paper not to run with the Brown / Letters saga on their main website?
465 “are there no centre or right wing comedians?”
berkshirelad - one or two who spring to mind:
Jim Davidson
Jimmy Tarbuck
Bob Monkhouse (Dec’d)
Ronnie Corbett (probably)
Mike Yarwood
er… um….
478. “I generally only respond once the Tories on here bring up the story”
LOL!!
That’s like a rampant alcoholic saying he only has a drink when one of the Temperance Movement visit his house and offer him a Gin & Tonic.
One for Sunil
North Korea: Kim Jong-il and his 19 private train stations
Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader known for shunning air travel has six luxurious private trains and 19 stations for his exclusive use, despite eight million of the country’s people facing starvation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/6530134/North-Korea-Kim-Jong-il-and-his-19-private-train-stations.html
486. There was also Kenny Everett and Les Dawson (both dec’d). I attended a bizarre Tory pre-election rally in 1979 at the NEC where they were guests of honour.
429 tim
…most of Latvias Jews had been murdered. Around half by Latvian irregulars who volunteered for the units celebrated by the Tories allies.
The Latvian Legion comprised nearly 90,000 men. As a military unit it was not involved in the killing of Jews. Of course it is possible that a very small number of Latvians who joined the Legion were formerly involved in massacring Jews, but this needs to be demonstrated on a case by case basis. No one would reasonably argue that the UK should withdraw from NATO because a small number of US service personnel were involved in torture and war crimes at the Abu Ghraib prison.
The Russians do allege that units of the Legion committed war crimes against Russian civilians and military, but this has not been proved and is disputed by the Latvians. I don’t think it likely that the Russians will initiate full disclosure of their allegations in international law courts: they have too much blood on their own hands.
We are dealing with an imperfect past. Let’s stick to the facts. Truth and reconciliation is what is needed.
Speccie reports on tensions between No10 and No11. It’s just like old times!!
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5519948/renewed-tension-between-brown-and-darling.thtml
On topic, Labour being reduced to 120seats, is way beyond Dockside Hooker territory. 200 is more likely
486: Comedians, like musicans just become old lazy sellout hypocrits. Hawking around their latest DVD of repackaged old material and relying on jokes which havn’t been funny for years.
There should be a logans run style cull for ‘artists’ at 30.
486: Comedians, like musicans just become old lazy sellout hypocrits. Hawking around their latest DVD of repackaged old material and relying on jokes which havn’t been funny for years.
There should be a logans run style cull for ‘artists’ at 30.
477. Charlie Brooker is a rather nasty piece of work.
I’d take our Sean any day.
“Speccie reports on tensions between No10 and No11. It’s just like old times!!”
With one constant, though……
re 463 tim you know full well that the fire brigade charge extra, as do the police.
SeanT.Ithink the point that tim keeps making repeatedly is that the Tories sold there birthright for a mess of potage; namely an association with(very shady) groups in whom they invested fond hopes of their delaying or derailing The Lisbon Treaty.
Since their hopes came to nought he is correct to point out that they have forfeited any legitimacy in Europe.
It did not escape my notice that even Mr.Jones has suggested a seamless backtrack.
Millibands agenda is different.He wants to see the Tories positioning on Europe as political poison for them and especially with the Obama administration.
Where I do agree with you ,SeanT, is that there are no votes in this.
492 - Like I said upthread it wouldn’t be down to bedrock it would be actively chiselling it away.
491 - I love this description of Brown
“Global Statesman of the Year is now a Global Figure of Mirth - Groucho Marx with the ability to raise tax”
490. Hmmm yes I seem to recall the Russians claiming for many years that they didn’t undertake the Katyn Forest massacre either. Clearly a very reliable source.
478 tim
Yet more arrant nonsense. No political leader today is unchaperoned by PR stooges. They are the ones wandering around in the background with clipboards and Blackberries.
Perhaps Gordon would perform better if he had a full brigade of spin doctors to surround him in interviews.
488. TSE.
Do you think he’ll permit photography?
Though some LUL staff* can get, shall we say, a little “North Korean” when they see you with a camera
*Fortunately doesn’t apply to the vast, vast majority.
Oh by the way, South Quay in Docklands has been moved 200 yards east to permit longer platforms to be built, and the new station opened two weeks back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Quay_DLR_station
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:South_Quay_DLR_station
“Groucho Marx with the ability to raise tax””
There is no sanity clause……
459. The issue isn’t about whether they contributed, but is rather about whether it’s possible in the 21st century to have an army of sepoys.
The evidence is that it wasn’t possible even in the past, when it should have been easier (eg Rome lost three legions in the Teutoberg Forest to the forces of a treacherous sepoy).
498 - The one thing that will be key is the differential turnouts amongst Labour and the Tories.
500. Kinnock ?
if we’re looking a mercenary army why not recruit the Afghans ?
They like to fight and we can point them in somebody else’s direction. Kill two problems at once.
A set of proposals which (like the Tobin tax) will be irrelevant, now that a change of government is imminent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/08/tax-system-reform-weath-inequality
486 Damn, I forgot to include PfP and his unforgettable Kipper Tie joke, due to get its annual airing in just 46 days time - I know, you just can’t wait.
505 - I think the critical factor in how well the Conservatives do and how badly Labour do is the distribution of the Lib Dems vote.
497 “It did not escape my notice that even Mr.Jones has suggested a seamless backtrack.”
I don’t think it is a backtrack. I don’t think they are or were genuinely anti-Lisbon at all. I think they left the EPP as a con and they’ll go back as soon as the dust has settled.
495. I quite liked the “By Any Means” series that ended last night. Didn’t see the original though.
504 The experience of most past empires is that it worked pretty well, so long as they were integrated into the imperial army, and the majority of middle ranking officers and above were drawn from the dominant country/race.
Ghenghis Khan (and even more so, his successors) incorporated huge numbers of the conquered peoples into his armies, with great success.
484. “Brooker thinks he is the funniest person ever. He’s not. That article was spectacularly poor, like most of his stuff.”
He’s rubbish on paper and screen. Brooker is the least funny and most overrated ’satirist’ around.
488 - could he not find trains slower than ones that go 37mph?
Fun but true train fact; FDR had a special armoured train built that could carry his Presidential limo. The train could pull into a secret station underneath the - I think - Waldorf hotel in New York. The car could then be driven out, go into a special lift, and be taken up to a street level exit.
508 - “there may be pressure for a tougher capital gains tax on main homes”
There isn’t any CGT on main homes now is there? I think that that would be an unbelievably malicious tax change to introduce.
507. OK, I might stick my head above the Camp Bastion parapet here, but didn’t the Afghan people drive out the Russians without our help, at least on the ground that is. Our help was limited to training and arms.
So why can’t the Afghan people drive out the Taliban in a similar fashion?
Gordo “apology” running on Sky News ticker…”sorry if can’t read my handwriting”….
516:It’s stupid and simply wont happen. Say you have to move for jobs. Are you really going to ask people to pay a CGT, so they are forced to buy a smaller house each time they move?
At the very least, you have to factor in some kind of rollover relief (as there is for business assets), so a reinvestment of proceeds produces no instant liability.
In addition, you would have to somehow factor in allowing some kind of loss relief.
Crazy idea.
513. There’s even the “Britannia and Her Boys” poster from the Victorian era!
Re: Plato November 9th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I was expecting that thing to start moving around Jowell’s neck. Quite the most bizarre dress item. Was it something left to her by a maiden aunt 50 years ago?
519 - Clearly but the fact that they are thinking of it at all is telling.
508. Will the Lords be able to kick that dreadful equalities bill into the long grass?
508. Sean F, remind me agaib, what level of seats do you predict Labour will slump to in the election?
Gordon Brown says “Sorry I cannot read what I write.”
I am actually starting to feel sorry for him.
505/510.
There are so many variables that I don’t expect any of the seat calculators to get particularly close.
525: If he can’t read what he writes, how can he expect anyone else to?
Maybe ill-health will be his exit….
516. I can’t imagine a more certain vote-loser. Perhaps Labour are aiming for 120 seats themselves?
525, I’m not. I don’t know whether that’s telling the truth. And if it is, why was (apparently) a misspelling crossed out and corrected? Why didn’t a minion check it for any basic errors?
Apologies if this has been posted earlier.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8350155.stm
Is it expenses, is it because she also dislikes Brown? Or is the seat going to be won by another party?
What a glorious country is the UK and England in particular. Recently I read a massive piece about the history of the Jews in Manchester from the year dot to the present day.
It went on and on for hours and unfortunately came to a halt in 1865.
What I gleaned was that anti-semitism in days of yore was on a much more gentle,dignified and human level.
The Manchester Guardian after a dodgy start became a force for the endorsement and welcoming of the Jewish community.
Things are different today !
In those days you had your religious nutters,the forbears of Rod Crosby and his ilk but they were always balanced by the ‘progressives’.
Another notable feature of mid-19th century civic affairs was that Roman Catholics were less trusted and more hated than Jews.
Finally I should note that before this piece concluded, Manchester had already elected its first Jewish mayor !
It was probably around this time that my Latvian forbears were contemplating a transfer to that great city.
529 - I do feel sorry for him, and normally I dont like him.
I think my sympathy comes from being a member of the bad eyesight/poor handwriting club.
I don’t suppose anyone on Daily Politics thought to ask Tessa Jowell about her appealing ex husband?
527 - indeed, and I’m sorry but that’s not an excuse.
My grandmother is in her 90s. She’s partially blind, but refuses to do anything to compensate for it. So she won’t pay attention when she’s eating, she won’t ask for help, and she just gets stroppy about it.
Her sister is two years older, and is completely blind and completely deaf. She can, however, eat by herself. She pays total attention to what she’s doing, asks for help when needed, and wouldn’t say boo to a goose if something went wrong.
Gordon Brown is my grandmother in this situation; he knows there’s a problem but is refusing to adopt very simple techniques to ensure mistakes are not made.
I see the PM’s letter/apology is now the lead news story on the BBC website.
497 URW
URW, you have made a significant and useful contribution to the ‘Tory partners in ECR’ debate by posting a link to the excellent paper on the status of Jews in Poland by Rabbi Schudrin. You have also revealed your Polish/Baltic Jewish origins and the tragic losses your forebears suffered during WWII.
You know better than anyone here that past atrocities committed in the region cannot be overlaid onto current party political contructs. There are unburied skeletons under everyone’s floorboards.
By all means pursue the truth of individual events with forensic rigour, but indiscriminate damning of a party that commands the votes of 32% of Poles comes from the same well of bigotry which polluted the N@zis.
Left and right do NOT mean innocent and guilty.
Finally I should note that before this piece concluded, Manchester had already elected its first Jewish mayor !
Was he a Conservative?
Lee Evans is a right wing comedian.
532, I’m short-sighted (bland condition, but I can’t read without glasses), but find it impossible to feel sympathy for the master of McBride.
527 “Maybe ill-health will be his exit…”
Mmmm. A Harley Street office.
“So Doc - what’s the news?”
“Not good PM - we’ve run all the tests, and they all point to one thing. You’re f*cked.”
“How bad is it?”
“The worst case of being f*cked it has been my misfortune to witness. Terminal…”
538. I imagine right wing comedians would face significant difficulties getting onto the BBC.
Roy Chubby Brown strikes me as quite right wing.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/09/article-1226236-0721DAAC000005DC-445_468×626.jpg
Does anybody know how much are we paying Mrs Sion Simon in an attempt to avoid these photos of Gordo?
Of course we should not forget the Latvians made their own contribution to helping world communism get off the ground as they were the Bolshevik shock troops in the early days of the Civil War.
519. It would also be yet another hidden stealth tax on the south-east of England, for the benefit of welfare dependencies in North Britain.
#587 since 1997 by my count.
539 - Indeed. The sooner he goes, the better, for everyones sake, especially his. He does not look a well man.
With ‘lettergate’ gaining such traction, it now seems inevitable that other examples of the PM’s letters are going to come out of the woodwork.
I mean, he must have written a fair few to grieving families, smeared MPs and reality TV show contestants…
New thread up
553 - don’t forget cricket players at the same time as important Libyans being release from prison…
552 - I don’t think he looks unwell as such. I think he looks drained, and I think he is just out of his depth.
549 - Apparently, he only does a 1-mile circuit. So much for “I’m fit me, I run all the time” rubbish. 1-mile, FFS, it is hardly a marathon. Also, apparently he only started a few weeks ago, but has been repeating that running angle for ages now, another porky pie?
537 John R.You gave me a real good laugh there.The piece didn’t specify but as a clue, there were two kinds of Jew in Manchester in them days and I don’t mean City and United.
On the one hand you had your urban poor, a bunch of ne’er do wells and misfits and on the other a well placed elite who were more Mancunian than the Mancs.
I guess the first Jewish Mayor was a Whig.
Seth O Logue.
I am not at all ‘party political’.So long as the Conservatives or Labour get in I am quite happy.
The Tories made a huge error in associating themselves with bad people for political advantage….not me.
534 Another David. Quite right. It’s Brown’s attitude to his problem, not the problem itself, that is the problem. If any of us found ourselves PM and having to write letters of condolence, I’m sure we’d buck our ideas up as a basic courtesy to others and out of respect for the office.
I refuse to accept that Brown can’t do better than that scrawl.. if he could be arsed. He can start by writing in a straight line. Perhaps a secretary can put some lined paper underneath? For pity’s sake, are these the depths to which this cretin has brought the once-proud office of PM?
The ‘never knowingly misspelt’ line is hilarious (sounds as if his advisers spend too long shopping in John Lewis …), but as others have pointed out, Gordon is only reaping what he himself has sewn. He has played the patriotism card into the ground. British jobs for British workers; I’m wearing my poppy first - and mine is bigger than yours; It’s unpatriotic not to support Tony Blair for EU President etc. etc.
If he can’t get the protocol right on his chosen field of combat he deserves everything he gets.
tim is so obsessed with nazis - he must really to become a nazi, but wait a minute that why he is a Labour party member who are the real nazis of today. Heil Brown Heil Brown!!!
Eric Sykes
Off thread, but I was wondering whetehr anyone could answer this question: Is Gordon Brown the longest serving PM in history never to have faced a GE?
I guess Churchill may be longer but he is exceptional as wartime and heading up a National Government
Rompuy and Milliband continue to be strongly tipped for the EU posts:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5A825I20091109
When in doubt it is always best to assume Ashley and her ilk like Tonybee are wrong. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see Labour get trounced like that but it ain’t going to happen. This is what the run up to the election will be about for Labour - the politics of fear. They will manufacture stories day in day out to scare their core support to vote and hope that some in the middle will also be scared. I think most people know Labour’s fearmongering tactics well enough to ignore them.
The Eurosceptic vote could all go to Conservative using the following calculation.
If Cameron is a eurosceptic, it is the best vote.
If Cameron is a europhile, the vast majority of Conservative MPs are eurosceptic.
If the Conservative majority is big enough, say 400-450 seats, the Eurosceptic ‘wing’ of Conservative MPs would hold an overall Parliamentary majority. They could effectively ignore Cameron and press on with a unilateral Eurosceptic agenda.
Now any UKIPPER would like the sound of that. Add 5% to the Conservative 40% and bingo, Parliament would be majority eurosceptic for the first time in its history.
Way to go!!!!
Ken Dodd
Jackie is talking cobblers. I Can’t see Labour getting less than 200 as things stand. Of course, if they replaced Gordon Brown with Mandelson, Harman, Johnson or Straw then Labour’s vote would collapse to those sorts of levels, but I don’t think the party is in a mood to press the self-destruct button just yet.