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Labour Party PEB: Tonight Gordon, You're Going to be ... Gordon
This is good. It's about Labour Party achievements and policies. It presents the true choice.
Between investment and invention as the way out of recession and back to almost uninterrupted growth as Labour propose. Or to the world of jeering, misery, cuts and every man for himself that David Cameron's no-longer cuddly Nu Conservatives counter with.
UPDATE 17:50: Couple of crowing rejoinders from Tories in the comments. There are 12-14 months to go. I'd hate for these crowers to be speaking too soon, wouldn't you? Meanwhile here's some web-only extras to tonight's PEB.
7 comments:
You do know that Labour's years in power have seen a steady fall in social mobility don't you? I suppose that allowing the poorest to achieve their potential is your definition of 'every man for himself'? As for 'uninterrupted growth', who gave us this recession? Whose economic forecasts have been trashed by just about everyone until they were finally forced to acknowledge their own pink-spectacled optimism? Step forward the Labour party. The country is in a serious situation, with public debt out of control and unemployment rising out of control. The Labour government and at least one Labour blogger appear to be in denial.
Err... i'm not sure anyone's mentioned to you that we're skint. Labour have filled up the public service with complete none jobs. Whatever administration gains office cuts will have to be made. However the Tories will be pragmatic instead of pushing 'causes' or whatever the hell the failed ideologues in your party want.
It's done Chris - it's over. You're on damage limitation now. The hierarchy have screwed their base and taken a reasonably respectable party into a hollowed out husk of ego, incompetence, ignorance and grotesque conceit.
It's a shame but you're done at national for at least 10 years and if you're ot careful, if us Tories triangulate the SNP and Plaid - the more likely scenario is that Labour are ended in their current form. You got blinged by a canny operator - we all like to get chatted up, but when she moved in and started using your credit card is when you should have kicked her out.
I'm sorry to watch this happen, truly I am but whatever fills the void be it Libs or BNP or a lefty old Labour thing - what needs to happen is an audit, review and get back to listening to your base.
Both these comments seem pretty fatuous to this old labourer actually.
Welcome Steve: Social mobility? Wealth gap? there is a serious downside to letting the super rich get super richer? Which is that goalposts are moved farther from the poorest ... even if the poorest are getting to be significantly better off. Which they have done. The poorest also benefit the most directly from the more nurses, more doctors, more hospitals, more clinics, more schools, more teachers. bring on more dentists as soon as you like people. But this is mending the roof when the sun is shining. Things are not as broken as Cam would like us to think, and things will be mended faster by invesment and invention than by jeering, sneering, cuts and what amounts to a for the few not the many headstand.
Dick the Prick: Most of this is just inane assertion - call it jeering! - but on the substantive question of public jobs are we not still behind Maggie on this?
Behind as in created less? I dunno - I do know that we've never been this skint before. Inane - maybe - but a lot less so that whatever the hell is going on at the cabinet table.
I've been a lot more skint than I am now! And I feel that the country has been too. The debt we're in is in many ways illusory and although quite high versus GDP the Uk plc brand is worth a lot more, there is a lot more wealth, and weighing loans against assets is often the first way such things are done, before affordability is checked.
Maggie did have more civil servants and a higher % spend on the public sector ... % increasing largely as private sector jobs disappeared which we must hope is going to be turned round shortly.
It is all these jeers and unbacked assertions that are inane IMO. Many a slip between cup and lip I'd say. Not wise to be planning the redecorations at number 10 just yet.
Seriously Chris - I've mentioned before that I respect your commitment to all things Labour & such but whilst that 'i'm alright at the mo - aren't you?' may work on the hustings in Madchester, it would appear that depending on interest rates and gilt yields - long term servicing of debt rises to somewhere between 60 - 90 billion a year (assuming the gilt markets don't go on strike).
Now as you're no doubt aware - the NHS currently teeters around the £100bn mark - soooo by 2013/14 ish (back of a fag packet calcs as we're, you know, inter-dependant) in 4 years - we're paying for 2 NHS but in factual act - only have 1. Doesn't that seem odd?
It's just the elction cycle - you chaps had the good times and it's perfectly reasonable for you to say - 'yeah, but what would you tossers have done?' - perfectly reasonable, but we don't live in a political environment where reason floats to the surface.
We live in some celebrity obsessed, blame culture, find a victim or be a victim land of public relations, image & evasion. Some are saying that the next election is the one that no-one wants to win - maybe, maybe. I didn't mean it to sound jeering - I was just attempting to state what we both know is going to happen.
I am infinatly more concerned with getting down the debt - standard housekeeping. Whilst, ofcourse I can understand that looking at Thatcher is fair enough - we're 30 years down the line. 30 years ago there's no way a credit crunch could have happened on Tuesday and screw many governments by Wednesday - times are different. Possibilities are different. It's natural people want to blame someone rather than their 2 BMW's, stupidly leveraged house, 2 holidays etc - people are idiots. It's a shame that the MSM are all overpaid and selfish but... whaddya want from me? It's done. Damage limitation man - and, ironically, you bloody well agree with me.
Clearly the best damage limitation - for the country - is a fourth term and for your hero Gordon brown to get into his stride. Looking for a 50-year social democrat golden era cf Sweden. Nothing less.
12 months plus. All to play for.
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