The Tories are at risk of imploding again, like they did in the late 1990s, when the right wing loonies in the party take over and push their agendas of opposing the EU and offering tax cuts for high earners, which will squeeze them electorally as these are not priorities for the majority of the electorate.

However what will probably save them at the moment is a weak opposition because Ed Miliband and Ed Balls do not look credible. If David Miliband was leader of the Labour party he would be have Cameron on the run and slapping him at every opportunity, like Blair did to Major. In fact I actually think if Alastair Darling was leader of the Labour party he would have Cameron in trouble as he had an element of trustworthy gravitas to him that Ed Miliband doesn't.

Fair points.

The trouble with HM Opposition is that they were bereft of ideas at the end of their time in power and they haven't found any new blood to give them an edge. There is still an air (rightly or wrongly) that they didn't do very much to get us out of the mess.

I don't think that is strictly true. I think there are plenty of bosses who realise the state has a role in the economy. What some of them want to be is the provider of services and goods on behalf of the state. So with the NHS they want the state to pay i.e. use our taxes to pay them to provide the service. It is the same in things like education, transport - you name it.

Now if the government stops spending on these things then the private sector overall will contract and won't create any jobs.

So where Hauge is talking rubbish is that the implication of what he says is the private sector that is not involved in any government funded work is the part of the private sector that can and should be working harder to fill the gap. There is not necessarily any demand out there for them to increase their output. It can't be the private sector that supplies the government that works harder because the government is cutting back on expenditure.

Or put another way our resident Tory, Robinson, is being expected by Hague to sell more houses so he needs to take on more staff to do so but like a lot of private enterprises I doubt he is in a position to do this to any great degree if at all given the state of the economy.

Hague can tell the banks to lend and he can cut corporation tax and then sit back and say "There I have created the conditions for growth" but given the economic uncertainties at the moment it is hardly surprising companies are protecting their shareholders wealth by being completely risk averse and are so doing basically nothing.

Oh OK.

Did he say that?

Maybe not, but he's fooking little oik! Ever since he pre-pubescently stood on that stage at the Tory party conference and you and the blue-rinsers lapped it up. Are you a little fooking oik? I can imagine so!

No need to get personal.

So basically, because he made a speech when he was 17, that directly effects what he said yesterday?

Very strange.

I want bum-sex with his Mrs, I know that much. Would you slot her Robbo?

Okay, okay: let's try to keep it within the 'watershed' approach.

blimey WZ, who rattled you cage ?

bit tetchy today mate ?

Indeed.



Directly affects? No. But it does colour peoples views on the man himself.
Mind he will have had to work hard to afford all them pints...

yeah,it's called hypocrisy

a bit like when the mighty Mr Kinnock a one time staunch anti European and dedicated Euro sceptic decided to feather his nest with the cosy (and well paid) EU Commissioners job - to make it worse he even got his missus a cosy little number in Brussels to boot !

they are all the bloody same !

can we add Lord Prescott into that, he wants to get even further into the trough and be Comissioner of Humberside Police (or whatever the role is going to be called)

wish he would sod off back to the Merchant Navy ....


they are all the same mate - bunch of self ed barstewards

it's even worse in france especially within the masonic lodges - even the uk equivalents won't touch them due to the corruption & nepotism etc - it makes me sick...

Not when he was leader of the Labour party he wasn't, he was calling for us to be in the ERM in the mid 1980s well before the Tories took us in.

That didn't stop Blair then saying the Tories had lost their economic credibility because of what happened to the ERM...

So, according to Standee & sanjunien:

If you're poor and socialist, you're jealous

If you're rich and socialist, you're a hypocrite

when Ted Heath

took us in the EEC in the early 70s (remember, WE voted for it democratically) Mr Kinnock was seen in the same light as Red Ken, Scargill, Red Robbo, Peter Shore and the like = extreme euro sceptics

Kinnock realised that it would be economic suicide to pull out of europe and so had to jump on the bandwagon, upsetting many of his contempories within the loony left/labour Party at the time - he had no choice but to accept the ERM in 1990 many years after his anti european stance

and correct, the Tores had lost their credibilty especially when senior Tories like the C of the Ex, Norman Lamont wasn't in favour...the crash was inevitable and it cost me a fookin' fortune !

not at all, Prescott is a hypocrite because he is guilty of crass hypocrisy.

How?

we are all capable of hypocrisy no matter what or who we are - it's human nature

we all have the seven deadly sins within us and can display them at any time, I can manage them all in the same day sometimes...

i'm not rich and socialist (ish) but very envious of anyone who has something better than me - I can't help it, it's in my nature and just like everyone else if they were honest enough to admit it

He said he would never take a seat in the Upper House, and then did! (popular belief is that he did so because he'd cheated on Pauline and it was his way of apologising to her)

Because of what happened to the pound when it was in the ERM, I think you mean.
i.e. Lamont sat in his office without even a TV to watch the currency markets and, as runners kep coming in to tell how much further the pound had fallen, kept throwing money at it, impotently waiting and waiting for instructions from the equally vacuous Major who didn't even contact him.
Then Lamont had the brass neck to say he'd never actually been keen on the ERM anyway ... didn't stop him from taking the job did it?

Yeah ... I think Blair had a point about Tory economic credibility after that, actually.


Your memory of it differs from mine.
In my recollection, Heath took us into the EEC without a referendum, and it was [uWilson[/u held a referendum on whether we stayed in.

no, the same thing - Ted took us in and we, the electorate agreed to stay in - vindicating Teds decision in the first place

Lamont took the job just as anyone wanting to get to the top in politics would have done - hence his agreement to toe the party line

Not something I was aware of, hardly the end of the world though is it?

I think it's more that he decried the very idea of an unelected upper chamber throughout his commons career, before jumping at the chance to get his snout in the trough at the earliest opportunity. So he's not only fat, boorish and generally unpleasant, he's also a hypocrite. I don't like John Prescott.