Friday, 11 May, 2007
- 11 May 07, 05:02 PM
From , Newsnight Presenter.
How quickly the caravan moves on. Tony Blair may still be at Number Ten but he is yesterday's PM.
Today Gordon Brown travelled around a series of English marginal constituencies launching his leadership campaign .
His cry is "new ideas for a new time", and Michael Crick has been watching him all day on his slightly shambolic tour, divining what will both be the substance of his almost inevitable leadership, and how the style will differ from Tony Blair.
Gordon Brown has told Newsnight he wants a government of all the talents. Might there be a signal that he is planning a revolutionary move?
And how would Gordon Brown signal a change of direction while sticking to the New Labour path?
We look at his biggest challenges at home and abroad. The Chancellor says he wants to lead a government "humble enough to know its place"
But is the Chancellor himself humble enough? Newsnight's specially commissioned poll suggests not.
He is seen as more arrogant and less in touch with voters than Tony Blair and David Cameron, scoring 30% to the prime minister's 34% and David Cameron's 40% of the vote.
When the 1,001 people polled were asked whther he was trustworthy, less than a third replied yes for Gordon Brown, who is on 31%, compared with 38% for the Tory leader and 41% for the Liberal Democrat leader.
We hope to be joined by a leading member of the Brown campaign team. And we'll bring together our Newsnight political panel, Danny Finkelstein, Olly Grender and Peter Hyman to read the runes .
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ONE GENERATION BEHIND...AND OTHER MANY REASONS FOR THE ERADICATION OF LIBERALISM...THEY WANT REVENGE NOT FREEDOM...WE HOPE GORDON BROWN TAKES OVER AGAINST THEM WHERE BLAIR WAS FOR THEM
Liberals are livid that they didn't get it..the attention love fun wealth power height length weight, knowledge, classes, they didn't...they hate it everything about us that says that we enjoy the world ...that we can do what we want... that we make our own decisions.....that we know what is expected and perform better....
Liberals want everyone to be the way they like... so they get it... the life they like... where everyone suffers because they didn't like us....where they get everything ..where they don't have to give a sh!t about us and can inflict their grievances and revenge on anyone...
They think they should select the future based on a selfish instinct that gets rid of all over classes opportunists knowledgeable forward thinkers creatives potentially ambitious sensual romantics lovables...
Almost every crime has been done by a liberal...They hate people who don't believe in them.. who have their own happiness enthusiasm the love of our own company and ways of life which are fun and get attention...
Most of us have to understand them for reasons of anticipation and protection...
They have used every kind of drug and poison they can find
....every kind of technique of game theory lying deception perjury and fraud
...every kind of fighting ...
There is no law in liberalism ..only winning and their collusive fears of being the loser...
Their impossible ideologies obediences behaviours criminologies psychologies psychiatries HR and economic models are a real problem for most of us
Yet they are establishing themselves with them in positions of trust to work out their vendettas at dozens of victims per charge via the police via education via maternal positions via girlfriends via the NHS...
What they have done singularly and enterprisingly is despicable... people are dead disabled impoverished...hundreds are drugged into lesser humanity and many are a generation behind in their family and their productivity because of it...many people are deliberately injected by the NHS under the cover of other treatments, many are set up with women to get them beaten up, many are drugged in drinks before exams..they have all kinds of deliberate vendettas...anorexia is deliberately inflicted using liberal techniques
Every decimation they see as a triumph a deserved victory against the kind of people they hate today... we must fight them back and eradicate their beliefs systems...
But they have spread drugs around to make people believe in them whether we like it or not....we see by the same light TV and lighting we hear the same sound have been to the same places have the same motives similar reading phrases media expose associated and memories...
The sense of being a victim is in fact the only being we have..all else is enjoyment of common senses and performances...it is what they call the psyche the victim sense...different from escapism or ergonomics of avoidance ...which they try to turn off with drugs...the psyche prepares for the inevitable and the psycho makes people inevitable victims...if you search for the psyche all you will find are the pains inside and the memories of moments when you were a victim...yet there are so many more memories... or all the other activities and company you were in.....
Liberals use the victim sense...and try to propagate the psyche to make people easier to victimise into failure...
A complete exploration by all in Britain of all their techniques is underway lead by urgent necessities...liberals want to be the chief people and everyone who doesn't want to be the way they like is economically trivial..
BCD TLC...
As Libertarians we accept all ages of humanity but want to achieve our ambitions and get on with creating a more perceptive rewarding considerate caring life in attractive refreshing company with popularisable inspirations
As conservatives we prepare for worlds of all opportunity for and against us yet contributing to a productive superior world where the work was worthy...
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all gordon has to do for the uk to be happy is concentrate on domestics and forget the neocon inspired foreign adventurism.
let him make a difference in housing [why are 60 million people restricted to only 8% of the land?], crime and social cohesion.
Multiculturalism has left too many parallel societies in the uk with no comprehension of each other, no consensus on what makes a good society and even no common language.
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Where Blair would say words he did not mean, Brown is now saying words that mean nothing. Will this misery never end? A couple of days back Brown 鈥減raised鈥 Blair鈥檚 reign as: 鈥渦nique, unprecedented and enduring鈥 (a bit like a new disease) and today Brown tells us he will earn the trust of the British people with: 鈥渧ision and new ideas鈥. Personally I would prefer he acknowledge Blair as deluded, devious and needy while winning my trust through honour and integrity. The root awfulness of politics is not going to change. It is brought about by the self-serving party system
that I highlighted in Newbury (2005) under the banner: 鈥淪poil Party Games鈥.
While we continue to vote for parties we will continue to suffer games.
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It's all Gordon Brown's fault. Why? I thought I would set the ball rolling, because all you Labour haters will soon find out what he is doing wrong. Blair and nobody else to blame now so Gordon is the next target.
Of course the Tories will bring sweet and harmony to the country. Go on, make my day punk!! You are wondering whether Cameron fired 5 or 6 policies from his gun.
I can't wait for the South East and "Tory Land" to get stuffed again by the Tories. We in the North know different. Once a Tory always a Tory. (or Conservative to be politacally correct.)
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Gordon Brown has waited patiently in the wings and now with a few difficult steps comes forward to pace his longed-for moments upon the political stage.He is sober and prudent and can stick by what he says and back up what he says.He stands clear of the long shadow of Blair,shaking himself free of the blarney stone of the spin machine.He can cast his own shadow and steer by his own moral compass without a Cambell whispering in his ear.We long for a return to a proper accountable parliamentary democracy and for a completion of the reformation of health and education so people can gain social mobility.May he find momentum and truly come into his own.
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LEGACY - things can only get better?
Blair is best suited to take a senior role in a Marketing Partnership.
He retains a remarkable ability to sell a message.
But given he does not 'do detail' & has rarely ever employed people who can delver against his 'message', he should say in the aspirational/visionary business.
WHAT ARE THE LESSONS OF 10 YEARS:
- Blair can't do delivery
- Brown fiddles the books & can't deliver
- Labour can't do governance.
- The New Labour government over a decade, employed default TAX & SPEND habits AND still fail to address major issues (education, social justice, CJS, benefits, health)
- The New Labour government choose to put the United Kingdom assets, institutions, people & reputation on the line to support diplomatic & policy choices - BUT poor tactics (BLAIR) & crippling under funding (BROWN) undermines strategy (BLAIR) & their ability to deliver against it (BLAIR & BROWN).
- There is nothing of value, those with agenda will not put at risk to gain perceived advantage (the union, institutions, national reputation, armed forces, society, unity, economy)
- There is no mechanism, those with agenda will not use, too gain perceived advantage .... manipulation & spin
Q. why are people expecting anything different from Brown, as one of the major architects of New Labour & who has acted as its Paymaster for the last 10 years+?
Blair's legacy is Brown's responsibility
vikingar
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Sir, At long last, it's Gordon. I have a horrible feeling it is going to be....business as usual, tuition fees, longer adventures in Iraq, still talk to mad Presidents, encourage PFI's in hospitals and London transport, why do I say all this? Because he was the architect of what had gone before! We know the rhetoric, 'he signed all the cheques' but he did. As much as he says we will depart from certain policies when it comes down to it he will revert to the middle ground market economics that will accommodate the south east and around the M25. He thinks any radical agendas will consign Labour to eternal oblivion. If Gordon says within a month of his premiership (and it is not a shoe-in) we will be out of Iraq within months I will be his first lieutenant but it is never gonna happen and the tragedy is that Cameron is waiting in the wings. Sincerely, Steven Calrow
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HANG ON 鈥 WHAT HAPPENED THERE THEN?
Blair鈥檚 time as Prime Minister raises a number of questions for me, that seem to have no sensible answers.
In the bizarre world of politics where power is everything, deception is 鈥渉onourable鈥 and unbridled ambition approved, Blair was an asset. Blair won elections. Put another way: his ambition and deception brought power to those who gathered under the 鈥淣ew Labour鈥 banner.
I am unable to find any reference to actual power conferred by the Queen when 鈥渁sking鈥 a party leader to form 鈥渉er鈥 government, but the term 鈥渄e facto鈥 reared its insidious head during my enquiries.
However, hierarchies such as Church, Armed Forces and Politics, where higher office is only gained by pleasing (or not displeasing) those more senior to oneself, inexorably confer immense power on the holder of the highest office and considerable immunity from constraint by those below; some adoring, some fearing and some biding their time . . . In the specific case of a British Prime Minister, their power extends beyond the party they lead (unlike Church and Forces) to us. Yet the general public cannot - from day to day 鈥 topple them even if they are seen to wield that power improperly. By way of illustration: I am of the opinion that had Blair wanted lamp-posts painted a particular colour (don鈥檛 laugh 鈥 Cones Hotline?) he might well have had his way. Taking us to war is just lamp-posts writ large. There is nothing new here (in ancient China the Qin emperor decreed all cart axles the same length) but might we not expect, after thousands of years, new from 鈥淣ew鈥 Labour?
At a local level, British 鈥渄emocracy鈥 presents voters with candidates pre-selected by party-machines. This requires the humble voter (clutching their four-to-five year spaced 鈥減ermission to make a difference鈥) to choose between two or more, deviously presented, expensively hyped emasculated personalities, who are more rosette than representative. Any idea that ones MP should be free to react to local events, right down to some individual鈥檚 dire plight, without being filtered, diluted and diverted by 鈥淐entral Office鈥, seems to have departed the voter-consciousness. We now vote for parties 鈥 and get games.
Candidates are rosette stands who plug 鈥渢he manifesto鈥, carefully crafted in choice of issues and precise wording (while their party spends untold money rubbishing the opposing camp). In consequence, a local representative can actually succeed while being neither local nor representative.
And we are back to Blair.
Tony Blair wore a Labour rosette when parachuted into 鈥渃an鈥檛 lose鈥 Sedgefield in 1983.The people of that constituency voted for Labour overwhelmingly and predictably. Had Joe Anybody worn the Labour rosette, Joe would, likewise, have become their MP. Had Blair carried any other rosette, he would have been rejected. The citizens of Sedgefield were not voting for Blair; not as representative 鈥 certainly not as Leader of Britain.
On the death of John Smith, the Labour Party held an internal election to choose a new leader. Tony Blair 鈥 as himself, one presumes 鈥 was chosen; but only as leader of the Labour Party, not leader of Britain. (Is not a 鈥渓eader鈥 in a democracy, a non-sequitur? Surely a manager would be more appropriate?))
Then we get the strange business of the Queen, touched on above - whose constitutional impotence seems to bestow great power 鈥 and suddenly all the lamp-posts are turquoise.
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May there have been a darker consequence (or even objective) of New Labour's 'education, education, education' policy?
Although this trend has been with us since the 1960s, New Labour's policies have resulted in the highest proportion of educable females in our history ever going into higher education and staying in the competitive workforce longer. The consequences have been further compounded by rising property prices which have made it almost impossible for them to get on the property ladder without two incomes. But note how this is not symmetrical, those who can't work or who are relatively less uneducable are not penalised the same way as they can get social housing and benefits. The former group also begin their career in debt which just adds more pressure to stay in the workplace rather than begin motherhood.
This darker, insidiously growing, inequality has been reinforced by further equalities legislation which increases the likelihood of women of above average ability staying in the workforce for longer which just further reduces fertility in this part of society, and therefore, in time, the numbers. Meanwhile, those in the lower half of the ability distribution continue to grow. The effect? Mean ability in the population shifts left, i.e down, albeit ever so slowly. In a word, this is dysgenesis.
I suggest that this, (by accident or design) has only served to make our already dire demographic problems worse by further tilting our (already worryingly below overall replacement level), differential fertility.
There are serious consequences to this, and whilst immigration has no doubt been used as a necessary short term patch, in the longer term, this and the above, can only make matters far worse as it will just swell the numbers at the lower end of the skills distribution at the expense of those usually called upon to provide services.
Yet New Labour sold 'education, education, education' to the electorate as a panacea, or at least as a major contribution towards improving our economy and furthering equality! What I'm suggesting here is that looked at more closely and critically, this may not be the case at all.
This is counter-intuitive and paradoxical, but if sound, the basic message is: 'we've all been had', as what would appear at first sight to have been a positive contribution to improving equality and ultimately the economy, turns out instead to have been a rather dark dysgenic strategy, which, either through stealth or negligence (it matters little which in terms of outcome), progressively destabilises the country the longer it continues, by thinning the numbers in the upper half of the ability distribution (by reducing fertility there) whilst effectively letting the lower half of the ability distribution swell.
The pace of this has just been accelerated by New Labour over the decade. It began much earlier, even before Thatcher according to long term TFR figures. Blair's government inherited and accelerated frankly anarchistic policies which were had already been set running. I don't know whether Mr Brown is a Stalinist, but there's definitely more that a whiff of Marxist-Leninism (and especially Trotskyism) in the air.
Whose interests have such policies really served? Given low electoral turnouts in recent times, and serious questions being asked about who's been paying the piper, I'll leave that to others to ponder given that we are *supposed* to call the tune, but I would suggest that those with short-term financial interests and somewhere else to go might be prime candidates in this ever more global economy.
This has been done before in history - albeit more violently and dramatically. Here we see it being done through stealth and 'reform' (the image is one of frogs heated up slowly in a pan). There has been so much legislation (especially in the Home Office) that the term 'permanent revolution' (however technically inappropriate) comes to mind.
Food for thought when considering New Labour under Mr Brown?
See the comments towards the end of this for elaboration:
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House prices & state willingness to get us to part with our monies (tax) will do for Brown & Labour (medium too long term).
Because of rising house prices, the baby boomers have benefited, but the next two generations have not, esp the last.
When increasing numbers of middle class people, cannot readily get on the housing ladder & it becomes near impossible for working class, the ability too participate in society is denied, mobility is replaced with stagnation.
One job will not be enough.
Certain jobs will never earn enough.
So people will have too:
- restrict themselves too those jobs which pay
- do more than one job.
- opt out of working & become state dependent
The largest source of taxable wealth (in the UK tied up in property) will be increasingly stripped from baby boomer pensioners by current & new tax & penalties he Inland Revenue will need to harvest ever increasing amounts too fund Labour misfiring Britain's.
With little or no inheritance left for family & friends, the market will have too self correct too reflect what the people & state can afford.
Hope we have jobs still which can afford cheaper property in a readjusted market.
鈥 & I have not even mentioned education, CJS, society or the threat of outsourcing' evolving to the next level
vikingar
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The problem with the Autocue at GB's press conference was perhaps indicative of a long-standing problem. GB might be too resistant to advice on such basic matters. Has no one urged him to lose some weight, get help for that astonishing habit of leaving his mouth open between sentences, and look better cared for instead of like a politician from the 1950s?
GB seeming more relaxed in speaking about policy immediately after TB has announced his departure date might be to do with him always having been previously bound by collective cabinet (and previously Shadow Cabinet) policy, with him having only the Treasury remit. A very difficult position from which to mark out a policy identity as at future PM. Or he might never have wished to share his intentions, and still might not.
After all, if he had said, before Labour was elected, that he intended to maintain a continually prosperous economy, as never before, but the price would be an unimaginable increase in the gap between asset-rich and poor. with conspicuous, contemptuous wealth rubbed in the eyes of people who have ever decreasing chance of such assets, opportunities or security, and the various steps that would then be needed to maintain stability in those circumstances (enslaving people in debt, abolishing privacy, expanding the prison population, increased alcohol abuse, dumbing down our culture, politicians transported in bullet-proof black SUVs), would he have even been selected by his constituency party?
As a middle-class, property-owning and financially secure man, GB seems unlikely to have any idea of the position of people on the other side of the property divide that is now so emphasised. TB noted that their lives were sometimes made a misery by anti-social behaviour, and did at least something about that. But their rents rise by above-inflation rates, their council taxes pay for obligatory policies to maintain and increase house prices, their lives are run by landlords who are at best benevolent, and often incompetent and downright despotic. I wonder if GB knows that social landlords in the UK will not protect their tenants from neighbour's tobacco smoke, ban working from home, will not allocate homes with extra space for work or study, do nothing about homes that are too hot in summer, and won't allow showers? Those are policies backed by public money. The divide is immense and hopeless.
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It looks like the Guardian has deleted the comments referred to in #9 above, I guess they must have offended someone?
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