tony blair « Talking Bollocks

Posts Tagged ‘tony blair

Mar

How bad do Labour and the Tories have to get before you vote Liberal?

Categories: Bollocks, Labour, Politics, democracy and new labour
Tags: Asquith, British pragmatism, expenses, Labour, liberal, liberal democrat, Lloyd George, Margaret Thatcher, non-domicile, non-doms, religious convert, Sir William Harcourt, talking bollocks, tony blair, Tories, Tory, Vince Cable, Vote Liberal, Whig

Gordon doesn't come close

In the past, when people discuss which party they will vote for in Great Britain they often consider voting Liberal but then dismiss this as a wasted vote. The logic is that they quite like the Liberals but that they wont get in. A similar argument is made that the Liberals are “too nice” and so will not have the ability to get into government.

These people are TALKING BOLLOCKS!

Twenty years ago The United Kingdom had two main parties plus the Liberals and a smattering of others. The two main parties had opposing ideologies and the vote was broadly split between them. However, Tony Blair transformed the Labour Party from a left leaning semi socialist party into a Tory convert. Margaret Thatcher believed in privatisation because she thought that nationalised industries naturally inclined to inefficiency and that the power of the market keeps private enterprise on it’s toes.
Tony Blair believed in privatisation because he had seen that this strategy had worked for Thatcher. Tony Blair understood nothing. He believed fanatically in privatisation the same way that a convert becomes bound up with the rules and not the spirit of their chosen religion. The same way that ex-patriots fein obsession with the minutia of their home county.

The result is that we now have two capitalist parties fighting over the same vote.

Both Labour and the Tories have shown themselves to be corrupt and despicable and Labour have shown themselves to be incompetent.

Of course Liberal MPs have been involved in the expenses scandal and, I believe, do receive financial contributions from non doms. But I believe that in general the Liberals have been more honest and principled than either Labour or the Tories.

The Liberal Democrats were formed from the old Liberal party which in turn was formed from the old Whigs. During the 18th and 19th century the Whigs along with the Tories were the main party of government. The prominent Liberal, Sir William Harcourt said this of the Liberals:

“Liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right. The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes, a Liberal Government tries, so far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do what he wishes. It has been the function of the Liberal Party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the country where people can do more what they please than in any country in the world.”

The Liberals have stuck to their principles. Their policies are not driven by ideology but by traditional British pragmatism. Though they stand for broadly free market economics it was the Liberals who were responsible for creating the welfare state under Asquith and his Lloyd George.

We should also remember that Vince Cable appears to be the only MP who understands economics and has the best chance of digging the UK out of the current mess.

So now, when we go to vote, will we once again vacillate between the two options which you loathe or, will you do what your heart always told you should do: Vote Liberal Democrat.

Mar

Oh Christ! – Could Labour get back in?

By jonesxxx 5 Comments

Old Labour / New Labour no same same

The election campaign in the UK seems to have started and it has been a pretty miserable affair. The priority of any new government must be to cut the deficit and this means cutting expenditure or raising taxes (or a mixture of both). However, politicians know that they are unlikely to get elected by telling the pubic the truth so they ar all tiptoeing around the issues while lobbing insults at each other.

The Tories lack of policies has given the public no great reason to vote for them and their lead dropped to around 6%. Then we heard that the deputy chairman of the Conservative party, Lord Ashcroft has non-domicile status and therefore does not pay much UK tax. Mr. Ashcroft has donated large amounts of money to the Tories and has played a major part in their elections strategy. Outrage ensued amongst Labour until it was pointed out that they have their share of spongers such as Lord Paul. However the Tories seem to be suffering most from this because of the tawdry way in which Lord Ashcroft got his peerage. It seems that he was turned down the first time but the little shit was so desperate to be made a Lord that he actually entered into off the record negotiations and gave his word to become a permanent UK resident. He later changed his mind on that of course but by then he had his peerage.

It may seem right that the Tories get attacked for this but we all know that this sort of thing goes on and I would like to remind everyone that it was New Labour who pledged to reform the House of Lords. In practice this reform amounted to doing away with the hereditary principle and promoting the sort of back street dealing that is the traditional path for Life Peers. Lord Ashcrof’s appointment would not have happened if Tony Blair had not made a balls up of House of Lords reform.

This morning we were told that Michael Foot has died. As the media is reporting, Mr. Foot was an old style Labour politicians. A socialist and a man of principle.

The fear now must be that traditional Labour supporters will recall fondly the honestly and integrity of Michael Foot and, in misty eyed desperation, decide that Gordon Brown best reflects those same characteristics. It could be that the electorate hand the government of the country to the very man who betrayed Labour’s principles and plunged the country into the worst mess since Denis Healey was forced to go begging to the IMF in 1976.

Will the New Labour nightmare never end?!

Dec

We should attempt to disprove climate change

By jonesxxx 1 Comment

high tide or global warming?

Someone on the radio mentioned the great freeze of 1963 today. A bit of quick research on the net revealed that this was a bit of cold weather in the UK with record low temperatures which started at Christmas and lasted through to early March. I recall a hot summer we had in 1976 and, of course it’s a cliché, that people used to be able to skate on the Thames when it froze over.

These days all discussion of weather revolves around the subject of climate change. If we are sceptical and refer people to the winter of ‘63 or the summer of ‘76 to demonstrate that weather is variable then people will scoff and tell us that, of course, there will always be national variations but that the general trend will be warming.

It occurs to me that if we are supposed to accept that 1963 and 1976 are natural variations which have no baring on climate change then surely the effect of this climate change is minimal. Yes the average temperature may increase by a few degrees but if we’re saying that it’s still a lottery wether we get a cold winter or a hot summer then who cares?

I heard Nigel Lawson say that he had an estimate that handling climate change would take 1% of global GDP. This sounded a lot until he pointed out that 5% of global GDP had already been spent on handling the credit crunch. That puts it into perspective. Maybe his figures are wrong but the way the pro climate change lobby carry on you would think it would take 95% of GDP.

I guess I mean that all of the argument seems to revolve around whether there is global warming and whether the warming is man made. None of it seems to be concerned with the effect of the warming except for some vague assertions that “we will see more of this” every time we have a bit of extreme weather.

I am not denying climate change but I am aware that most people don’t understand it and most of the people that claim to have merely learned the scientific arguments in favour until they can recite them verbatim. And even these people seem to make no real effort to change their lifestyle other than insulating their loft or buying dodgy carbon offsets for their self indulgent international travel.

I recall that when Tony Blair was pontificating about the subject in 2007 he was asked whether he would refrain from taking holidays abroad and he scoffed at this. While he didn’t mind exhorting us to cut back he wouldn’t actually be doing anything that affected his own lifestyle.

We humans love a catastrophe. If it’s not nuclear Armageddon it global cooling and if it’s not global cooling it’s global warming. I wonder if anyone has considered that the earth might warm up a little bit but no real harm will be done?

One of the arguments made by climate change sceptics is that, as climate change becomes more of an issue, more funds are directed to the study of climate change and this produces more argument in favour of climate change.

Since the essence of the scientific method is to disprove an assertion, rather than to prove it, I would like to see a separate scientific body created with a mission to:

Disprove the assertion that climate change will effect humanity in any significant way
Disprove the assertion that climate change is man made
Disprove that climate change exists

I am not arguing that climate change is a myth but that if a scientific body with such a remit failed then it would give more credibility to the climate change lobby than than a bunch of fanatics who regard climate change as an article of faith.

Oh, yes, and telecommuting. Instead of spending hours in our cars we should stay in bed an extra couple of hours a day and work from home. We’d be less tired, more able to think clearly and we’d cut down on the emission of an enormous amount of CO2.

Dec

New Labour Undead

By jonesxxx Leave a Comment

New Labour Undead

When Tony Blair left I was glad. At last the kingpin of the age of spin had gone. Though I considered Gordon Brown to be incompetent, I thought that at least he was sincere.

Then Peter Mandelson was rehired to help paper over Brown’s failures. Then Blair tried to become president of the EU. Now I hear that Alistair Campbell is back! It is like watching one of those hideous American zombie movies where the zombies get there heads cut off and are inert for a moment before one of their gnarled hands reaches out and grabs you by the ankle.

Does nobody remember the dodgy dossier? Did Doctor Kelly really kill himself? What about those stupid little pledge cards? Do we not care that our leaders are total bullshitters?

On the news today I heard that Brown now has a bee in his bonnet about over paid civil servants. I’d be more impressed if he started cutting down on overpaid special advisors. He wont do this of course as the top layer of the cabinet are all ex-advisors, speech writers and other hangers on. Toadying and spin is now the fast track to a safe seat and an eventual cabinet position.

I just heard the BBC say that some nit wit is saying that top bankers are like top footballers and you have to pay them large bonuses. Whoever they guy is he was Talking Bollocks! But hold on, if we change the analogy slightly it might work. Perhaps top bankers are like top footballer who you thought had scored a lot of goals and won a lot of games last season but then you woke up and found it was all a dream and the footballers have scored no goals and lost every game they ever played. Put it like that and the bankers are exactly the same as top footballers.

Oct

Blair for president? – Don’t look at his reputation says Brown

By jonesxxx Leave a Comment

Don't look at his past says Brown

Gordon bloody Brown was on TV again last night banging on about having Tony Blair for president of the EU. When asked why we should have Blair considering his history Brown remarked that we should not be looking backward but forward.

What sort of nonsense is this?

When deciding on which individual should be trusted with the presidency of such as large and powerful organisation we necessarily need to understand if that person is fit for the job. How are we to do this if we cannot look at his past performance? Mr. Brown suggests that we should consider the future but, lacking precognitive powers and a crystal ball, I know nothing of Blair’s future.

We have too look at Blair history. We have to consider his reputation for spin, conniving and lies along with his appalling lack of judgement. Are these the attributes which we want in a president? I think not.

Another infuriating thing about this talk of Blair for president is that it all seems to be arranged behind closed doors. Nobody is arguing about whether he can gain a two third majority of the votes in North Rhine-Westphalia or whether he can rely on support from the Italian Constitutional Democratic Party because the presidency will not be decided democratically.

I don’t understand why is Blair’s name is even on the agenda. Who put it there? Is there even a list of nominees? I have not heard of one. There appears to be no formal process by which a president is appointed; a situation which would not be tolerated for a county cricket club, let alone a supra national organisation with tax raising powers and a budget running into the billions of Euros!

All this serves only to underline the inadequacy of EU institutions and the complacency of the national governments. Let us not forget this is not some ancient institution in need of updating. This is the presidency created in the latest fiasco of rule making now known as the Lisbon Treaty.

The political elite would have us believe that we can have the EU or we can have democracy but we can’t have both. They are talking bollocks. We can have both, we can have a democratic Europe. The obstacle for this is entrenched vested interests and until these are overcome and the EU is democratised we should keep it at arm’s length and definitely not put a power hungry incompetent in charge.

Oct

Will the New Labour nightmare never end?

By jonesxxx Leave a Comment

I’ve been away for two weeks in Rome. Working. Yes it was nice but it was nice to get home and on Saturday afternoon I ate breakfast at a café in Trafalgar street. While I waited I read a Daily Mirror and on page 4 I was flabbergasted to see that two of the headlines implied that the New Labour nightmare may continue for some time to come. The first said “Blair Up for President of Europe.” And the second “Mandy for PM?”

Has the world gone mad?

blair to be president

Perhaps while I was away the whole country has been brain washed and we have forgotten that the the three stooges of Blair, Brown and Mandelson ran down British industry in favour of a speculative bubble while Brown promised “an end to boom and bust”.

As there had been so much publicity over Brown’s disastrous interview with Sky TV I watched it on Youtube. Amazing. He seemed to think that he had avoided global financial meltdown single headedly yet completely ignored his own part in causing the crisis. And let’s get this straight, the crisis may have been world wide but the ideological underpinning behind the speculative bubble can be traced to the disconnect between UK/US spin and the real economy. Blair and Brown believed that if they just spent money and told lies then the lies would come true.

In the interview Brown whinges that the interviewer wants to talk about personalities while Brown wants to talk about policies. This is rich. Just last week Brown had to get his wife to speak up for him at The Labour Conference in Brighton telling us what a good man he is. For God’s sake! Why not get his mum there too? The problem is that the wife’s opinion is merely that Brown’s heart is in the right place. Well great, so he meant well while he made a cock up of the British economy. That’s nice.

The point is not whether he meant well, the point is that he is arrogant and incompetent. A mixture that I personally find particularly unforgivable.

And Blair as president of Europe! Well, I guess the Europeans have not had to suffer the smug, grinning, amoral, imbecile the way the British have. Recall that this man was the peace envoy to the Middle East that couldn’t even bring himself to call for a ceasefire while the Israelis bombed the crap out of Lebanon. Then he went silent when the Israelis bombed the crap out of Gaza. If the only requirement for becoming the peace envoy to the Middle East is keeping your mouth shut then Blair is obviously the man for the job.

Mandy for PM

And Mandelson for PM? Has nobody noticed the reinjection of deception which has accompanied the return of Mandelson?

I guess we should not really be surprised that New Labour care more for media manipulation than they do for action. It’s all they understand. It seems that most of them have a background in public relations or the media. Just today I heard that Brown’s wife worked for a “brand consultancy”.

There seems to be a school of thought that, as bad as New Labour have been, people must vote Labour to stop the Tories getting in.

Why?

In what way have New Labour been better than the Tories? Firstly I suggest that New Labour have got away with more market orientated, hyper capitalist idiocy than the Tories ever could and secondly I ask what is the point of voting for a party whose policies are at odds with your wishes merely because it used to be left wing in the old days?

If Labour were kicked out at the next election and the Tories elected then at least Labour would be forced into a rethink of their media centric approach to politics and might start spending less time on presentation and more time on achievement.

Let us hope that The Daily Mirror is Talking Bollocks.

May

General election now! – Sign the petition

By jonesxxx 3 Comments

Categories: Economics and Politics
Tags: "credit crunch", Any Questions, asset price bubble, BBC, betrayals by our leaders, big brother, BNP, Britain's reputation, British people, CCTV, civil liberty, confidence, convert, corruption, demonstrations, detention without trial, doctrine, economic crisis, erode civil liberties, European Elections, expenses scandal, fag end of the last Tory government, fiddling expenses, fiddling their expenses, gambling, George Bush, Gordon Brown’s, hyper-capitalism, illegal war, iraq, Islamist terrorism, kettling, Labour, leadership, Lord Falkner, Lord Falkner is Talking Bollocks, Matt, new labour, obligations, petition, platitudes, police response, police violence, policies, Privatisation, probity, promises, protest, prudence, racism, Radio 4, representatives, responsibility, sleaze, spin, super casinos, super rich, Susan Kramer general election, talking bollocks, Thatcherism, the bitch of big business, The Economist, the straw that broke the camels back, tony blair, trust, trustworthy, without understanding or judgement

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.

We need a General election now.

But don’t stop there!!!!!

Sign the petition on the Downing Street web site:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GoToCountryNow/

Matt - The Daily Telegraph

Sep

Whatever it takes? – What about stepping down Brown

By jonesxxx Leave a Comment

Categories: Politics
Tags: "whatever it takes", financial crisis, Gordon Brown, new labour, petition, tony blair

Just heard Gordon Brown on the radio state exactly what his government will do to sort out the financial crisis: “Whatever it takes”. This is very reminiscent of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s promise to do “everything possible”.

Both statements are mere bravado and neither statement shows any understanding of the problems or the least idea of a solution.

After over a decade of New Labour the British people are used to spin and Gordon’s Brown is as bad as Blair in this respect. However the site of the grinning Blair buffoon on American television this week only emphasised how irredeemably dull Gordon Brown’s little clique are.

Just go Gordon – Just go.

But don’t stop there! Sign the Downing Street petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/