The headlines are screaming that Britain is isolated and the Labour opposition are blaming the Prime Minister David Cameron. The leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband has tweeted that Cameron vetoing the EU treaty change was a sign of “weakness” – Yawn.
This whole furore is ridiculous. Like all EU countries Britain will act in it’s own interests. Britain is not in the Euro area and so her interests are dissimilar from Euro-zone countries. The root of this is that Britain is not a member of the Euro zone and that was a decision taken under Labour so blaming Cameron is absurd.
Does Mr. Miliband really believe that he would have handled the situation any better? If Britain had a Labour government Mr. Miliband would have found that it was he who had to walk the line between the rival mobs of pro and anti European Brits. He would have had to make the best judgement call he could.
Britain has always been half hearted about Europe. We don’t want a two speed Europe because we don’t want a diminution of Britain’s power in Europe but, at the same time, we are not in favour of the greater integration which is the goal of many other countries.
Britain is a problem for Europe but now that push, has come to shove, Britain has been forced to decide: in or out of the central core. Cameron has chosen out and, given the current state of the Euro, I doubt that Mr. Milliband would have decided differently.
The hysteria of Mr. Milliband’s comments are indicative of Labour’s continuing media focused leadership. Just last week he was pontificating on the comments of Jeremy Clarkson on a TV chat show. We should get this in perspective. Mr. Clarkson is the presenter of a car program. Like him or loath him CLARKSON DOES NOT MATTER. I do not elect and pay politicians to commentate on popular TV shows.
New Labour’s current performance are evidence that they still have not understood that 13 years of spin was a failure. They need to get serious and start identifying solid policy differences between themselves and the Conservatives. And a dose of sincerity would not go amiss.
I just watched Ed Balls on Channel 4 News calling for VAT cuts. Labour’s argument is that they agree that they need to bring the deficit down but not so fast. Recently I heard Labour talking about the National Health service. Once again they agree that change is needed but not the change that the government are pursuing.
It’s easy being in opposition. All you have to do is disagree with the government. I don’t think many of us have enough understanding to know whether the governments fast track to deficit reduction is better than Labour’s ideas for going more slowly.
We do know that the opposition are bound to disagree with the government. The truth is that Labour have no alternative and so they are forced to criticise the speed of the process rather than the process itself. This is not surprising since the Labour leadership are a bunch of nobodies.
Both Millibands and Balls have never had proper jobs. They all worked as media monkeys for New Labour before being shoe horned into safe seats. They perform so lamely in opposition because they have no policy ideas of their own. They only know is how to present ideas, know how to play the media. Remember that idiotic attack on Ken Clark a few weeks ago? Any sensible person who listened to Clark’s arguments could not have believed that he meant to make light of rape yet Ed Milliband picked it up and was banging on about it during PMQs the very same day. This was nothing but spin.
I have heard several times in the news that Ed Balls is a “considerable intellect” and that he is generally well clued up on the economy. Last week The Telegraph released transcripts of some of Mr. Balls documents from when he was working for Gordon Brown. I read the document entitled Project Volvo where Mr. Balls lays out his ideas for getting Gordon Brown elected.
Not much evidence of a great intellect there.
In fact, project Volvo was no more than an off the shelf marketing campaign which could have been put together by any marketing graduate. The same approach could have been used to sell magazines or margarine.
I realise that this marketing stuff works and therefore political parties are forced to hire marketing staff. I guess this took off in the UK when Margaret Thatcher hired Saatchi and Saatchi but Thatcher was never so stupid as to confuse marketing staff with politicians. Labour’s mistake was to allow the marketing men to run the party.
You have to be suspicious when you hear that Labour want to cut taxes. So when I heard, this evening, that Ed Balls wanted to cut VAT I did not think that this was part of a well thought out economic strategy. I thought that he was TALKING BOLLOCKS! Balls knows that reputable bodies such as the IMF and the EU do not agree with him and he knows that the government will ignore his calls. But that is not the point.
Mr. Balls does not expect the government to follow his advise. His call for a VAT cut is merely headline grabbing fluff to cast the Tories in a bad light. More spin. More marketing.
Under Tony Blair the marketing men worked too closely with the leadership. In today’s Labour party the marketing men ARE the leadership. I am even starting to hear of yet another rebranding attempt, this time to be entitled “Blue Labour”.
In marketing terms Labour is now a tainted brand and repairing a brand is a very big job requiring going back to honesty and principles. The product itself must have intrinsic value.
While Labour remain a party led by nobodies like Ed Balls even Saatchi and Saatchi couldn’t repair it.
Supporters of Labour in the United Kingdom appear incensed that they are no longer the party of government and are condemning the Liberal Democrats for forming a coalition with the Conservatives. Words such as despicable, treachery and deceit have been used.
Labour suffered a massive drop in support and polled far fewer votes than the Conservatives. The Labour party, Gordon Brown and the rag tag bunch of nobodies that formed the last cabinet are widely disliked throughout the country yet they now behave as if they have been cheated of power.
“I fear the lady doth protest too much”! Their allegations of betrayal and despicable conduct should be directed at their own leadership. Gordon Brown’s decision to bring the twice disgraced Peter Mandelson back into government placed the Brown premiership firmly in the “spin over substance” camp of Tony Blair.
Let’s just list the reasons why they are out of power:
No party gained an overall majority.
All parties are free to negotiate alliances as they see fit. The Liberals Democrats are an independent party and are not obliged to side with Labour.
A Labour / Liberal Democrat coalition would not have achieved a majority and would therefore have no more right to govern than the Conservatives alone.
I heard John Humphrys interview Ben Bradshaw on BBC Radio 4′s Today program yesterday. Mr. Bradshaw said “Get Real”. I think I first heard this term used by politicians recently when Gordon Brown used it during one of the televised leaders debates. Since then every Tom Dick and Harry politicians seems to be using it.
I’ve noticed this before. One of the leading politicians would use the phrase and suddenly all the second raters pick it up.
With Blair it even seemed to happen with his accent. All his little clique suddenly started speaking Estuary English.
I find it amazing that even MPs who are supposed to be leaders behave like sheep.
The other term they are all been using is “progressive”. They are all progressives now apparently. I have no idea in what way they think they are progressive unless it is in changing what Ben Bradshaw, out of nowhere, termed ”our broken and completely discredited electoral system”. If the electoral system is such an issue for Labour then it is strange that they did not think to change it before they went to the country.
The truth is that New Labour are doing what they have always done which to compromise their principles in order to stay in power. I recall that when Tony Blair was inventing New Labour the argument was that if they did not change then they would never regain power. That the Labour party went along with this argument shows how they were more interested in power than they were in their principles. On the other hand perhaps this was a triumph for democracy. If each party merely conducts polls on the popularity of various policies and then adjust their manifesto to fit then the population will get what they want no matter who they vote for.
I suspect that the new “progressive” agenda is no more than more Mandelson spin. Like “Get Real” it is a phrase that the sheep have been instructed to use as often as possible in an attempt to fool us into thinking their is subtance where there is none.
Mr. Mandelson denies any wrongdoing, again, and again, and again....
I hear that a French judge has issued an “international” arrest warrant against Floyd Landis, an American cyclist, for suspected hacking into an anti-doping laboratory computer. Mr. Landis has “denied any wrong doing”. Perhaps Mr. Landis is completely innocent but I thought it worthwhile to provide a translation for those not familiar with the English language.
The phrase “denied any wrongdoing” has a special meaning in English which is in exact opposition to that which might be expected. The phrase is often used by politicians when they are caught committing some crime or misdemeanour. The meaning is this:
“I am a conniving git who is guilty as sin but I have not yet worked out my story. Specifically I have not yet worked out which details of my crime for which the authorities have acquired irrefutable evidence and for which, a specific denial, would catch me out. I am therefore making this bland general denial of everything in the desperate hope that the authorities have not got enough evidence to convict me and to play for time while my expensive legal advisers work out a way for me to bluff this out.”
Mr. Landis is not in good company. Some politicians who have hid behind this bollocks include:
This evening on the TV I saw an advert exhorting me to reduce my driving by 5 miles a day to cut carbon emissions. On the face of it this sounds like a good idea but they are, in fact, talking bollocks.
What shall I do? Drive to within 5 miles of work, park on the side of the road and then walk into the office? Maybe I should not go into the office one day a week? An excellent idea, I’ve blogged about the benefits of telecommuting before but this ad made no mention of encouraging that and, indeed, the government has recently announced a 50p tax on broadband connections so they can’t really claim to be making any meaningful moves in that direction.
This TV advertisement represents the New Labour response to everything: raise taxes but spin a story like you’re not.
Isn’t it strange how quiet the British government have gone now that they have released the Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Isn’t it odd that the decision was made and recounted to the press by an unknown Scottish bureaucrat. New Labour were born in spin and thanks to Mandelson they will die in spin.
There was a good cartoon in The Independent today.
I have been mulling over the expenses scandal currently bubbling away in the British press and it seems to me that this is the straw that broke the camels back. The expenses scandle is the last in a long stream of betrayals by our leaders and specifically by New Labour. It is time for a general election. (See petition information below).
New Labour came to power promising an end to the sleaze that defined the fag end of the last Tory government. Tony Blair portrayed himself as embracing an innovative vision of The United Kingdom and promulgated a bold modern vision of the future of the UK.
MPs who tried to stop you seeing their expenses
However, it quickly became apparent that the cardinal attribute of New Labour was not vision but spin. One after another New Labour ministers proved themselves corrupt and were dismissed from office only to be brought back in once the fuss had died down.
New Labour policies turned out to be the wholesale adoption of Thatcherism but, as with all converts, the policies were embraced as a doctrine and without understanding or judgement. Privatisations continued and New Labour became the bitch of big business.
Tony Blair began hobnobbing with the super rich and power went to his head. At the frenzied height of New Labour devotion to hyper-capitalism he tried to introduce super casinos. That a Labour government should consider the massive expansion of gambling in this country when the only people calling for it were greedy American business men beggars belief but by this time he was so far gone he could not see further than the Gordon Brown’s balance sheet.
When George Bush decided to go to war with Iraq Blair’s dragged us in too. The Islamist terrorism unleashed the Big Brother tendency that is never far from the minds of any Labour government. New laws were introduced to detain people without trial, CCTV became almost ubiquitous
The credit crunch brought claims from our leaders that this was a global phenomena that had little to do with their policies ignoring the frequent articles in newspapers such as The Economist describing the dangerous asset price bubble which was being fueled by cheap money and would eventually burst.
When ordinary people protested against the bankers in London the police responded with highly questionable tactics such as kettling and casual violence which may have left one man dead. Yet our leaders supported the outrageous tactics and trotted out the usual platitudes about violent demonstrators.
Luckily the widespread use of video technology by the general public revealed that the violence was mainly perpetrated by the police.
Now we learn that those we trust with the leadership of our country are fiddling their expenses like so many seedy second hand car salesmen.
On The BBC, Radio 4 program Any Questions this week it was suggested that the British people use the upcoming European elections to withhold votes from the major parties. Our leadership on the panel showed the depth of their depravity once again by attempting to scare the public with the spectre of racism and erroneously implying that this meant a vote for the BNP.
Lord Falkner went on to complain that it was a tragedy that New Labour would be judged on the expenses story and that this was a distraction when more important issues were at stake.
Lord Falkner is Talking Bollocks!
There can be no more important issue than whether our leaders are trustworthy. Their policies and promises mean nothing if the are prepared to waive aside their probity and obligations for a few thousand pounds.
While preaching prudence our leaders have led us into the worst economic crisis for decades. They led us into an illegal war that caused the deaths of thousands and severely damaged Britain’s reputation abroad. They continue to introduce ever more draconian laws which erode our civil liberties and they encourage the police to suppress protest using methods not dissimilar to those found in Zimbabwe.
Now we hear that they have been fiddling their expenses.
During the Any Questions program Susan Kramer, MP, suggested that we need a general election. She is right. The British people must be given the chance to decide whether their representatives deserve the confidence and the responsibility with which they are entrusted.
Photography
Conniving gits deny any wrongdoing
Tags: conniving git, denied any wrongdoing, denies any wrongdoing, New Labour spin, spin, talking bollocks, wrongdoing
Mr. Mandelson denies any wrongdoing, again, and again, and again....
I hear that a French judge has issued an “international” arrest warrant against Floyd Landis, an American cyclist, for suspected hacking into an anti-doping laboratory computer. Mr. Landis has “denied any wrong doing”. Perhaps Mr. Landis is completely innocent but I thought it worthwhile to provide a translation for those not familiar with the English language.
The phrase “denied any wrongdoing” has a special meaning in English which is in exact opposition to that which might be expected. The phrase is often used by politicians when they are caught committing some crime or misdemeanour. The meaning is this:
“I am a conniving git who is guilty as sin but I have not yet worked out my story. Specifically I have not yet worked out which details of my crime for which the authorities have acquired irrefutable evidence and for which, a specific denial, would catch me out. I am therefore making this bland general denial of everything in the desperate hope that the authorities have not got enough evidence to convict me and to play for time while my expensive legal advisers work out a way for me to bluff this out.”
Mr. Landis is not in good company. Some politicians who have hid behind this bollocks include:
Peter Mandelson denies any wrongdoing
Lord Levy denies any wrongdoing
Hazel Blears denies any wrongdoing
Tony Blair denies any wrongdoing
Harriet Harman denies any wrongdoing
When these people deny any wrong doing they are, of course, TALKING BOLLOCKS!