All tactics, no strategy

TrevorsDen

Hmmm ... maybe this NEC is a way of getting Ed Balls in as the real chancellor.
What say will this 'NEC' have over the budget? Can anyone really believe that the next budget will be not written by Brown and Balls?

How long can Darling continue to allow himself to be buggered like this?

Or is he, like some rent boy, content to be used as long as he gets the money?

oldtimer

Do they have enough deckchairs to go round?

Austin Barry

I see that chirpy, budgie-like Hazel Blears is the member of the NE Committee charged with "ensuring that social cohesion is not threatened by the worsening economic climate".
Oh, dear..perhaps Hazel should be put in charge of Cabinet cohesion and John Hutton assume her brief. Add a domestic Jihadist outrage to the coming economic collapse and I doubt that Hazel's hand-wringing pieties will hold back the mob.

David C

Apply a test to No.10.

Can Brown sack his ministers?
Can he stand up in cabinet and move the Home Secretary or the Chancellor to another post?
If the answer is 'yes' then Brown is in control and leads his government.
If the answer is 'no' then Brown is a hostage inside No.10.
From everything that has been said over the past few weeks, and the way the reshuffle has been described, I suspect that Brown fails the 'Thatcher Test' and like a tantrum-prone infant, he is left at No.10 for the sake of party harmony while power lies, precariously balanced, elsewhere.

John Miller

Dare I repeat it? The purpose of power for these guys is indeed, power.

There is no point to a Labour Government, other than taxing people who have money and giving it to people who have not. Whatever the reason. When in power, they keep doing this until there is no money left, at which point they get voted out.

Brown was a lucky Chancellor and is now proving to be a lucky PM. Had the global crisis not occurred, there would have been nothing to divert attention from the fact that our economy is bust. all due to Brown's mismanagement.

As it is, his popularity is increasing and if he is still around when the crisis has passed, he will claim credit for "the recovery" and his popularity will further increase. He will then borrow more and tax us more, to get us out of difficult times, wrought upon us by those nasty capitalists.

This is what Brown is hoping for and the reshuffle guarantees he will still be around at the time of the election. At which point he will retire (in triumph)due to ill health brought upon by the strain of single-handedly dragging Britain out of the mire. Unless the polls give him a 10% lead...

Alison

Is that a typo or do you mean to imply that Shriti Vadera has some kind of relationship with the dark side?

Mike, Brighton

I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore. I'm as mad as hell and I can't take it anymore.........
These incompetent b*stards have totally destroyed our economy now drowning in a sea of debt. Their light touch regulatory regime was so lax it did not even notice how leveraged our banks were and how exposed they were to mortgage backed securities. The stupid moron who masquerades as our PM really believed that he had ended the economic cycle "no more boom 'n bust" he chanted to the applause of the myopic. So there couln't be a bust so our banks couldn't lose, could they? Now we face the very real prospect of a 1930's style depression.

Labour has nearly doubled the level of taxation that Mr & Mrs average pay all to p*ss away on social engineering, failing and unreformed public services and the purchase of votes through crude and incompetently administered welfare schemes (keep 'em poor and keep 'em voting labour).

They have destroyed our fine and proud military, smashed against the rocks of Iran and Iraq where they have performed bravely but with few resources and little political support. Our brave servicemen returning injured have to brave the NHS and abuse from ignorant patients not fit to lick their boots.

Our police are now little better than uniformed social workers tending to the chav and criminal classes when not filling in forms in police stations. Seeing a policeman on the streets is such a rarity these days that I gaze in wonderment when briefly glanced as some rare migratory bird. It's not an issue because crime is falling isn't it? According to Labour's crime statistics it is. In fact our streets have never been safer. Due to these falling levels of crime our jails are filled to busting and Labour is having to build "titan" jails to jail all these criminals who apparently don't exist.

Immigration has run riot forever changing the nature of our society. I do recall being asked to approve this policy? It is a cover for poor real economic growth as most of the growth in the economy and in employment under Labour has been through immigration. Many of these immigrants will now be returning home exposing the paucity of Labour's "economic miracle". But employment has never been higher? If you employ an extra 700,000 pen pushing civil servants plus force students into university it does wonders to the stats. It does not explain why 5.5 million people are on out of work benefits though.

Labour is morally, intellectually and physically bankrupt. We need a GE right now to boot these bastards out and start re-building our country. It will take a very long time.

And now...our country teeters on an economic abyss and Labour dithers around maybe bailing our the banks? With what money will they do this? There is none because the kitty is empty. Spent on labour's client state and the unreformed public services. More borrowing and the mortgaging of our and our children's futures to bail out greedy bankers and to make up for Labour's failed regulatory regime. But debt is low isn't it? Only 37% of GDP according to Mr Brown. He seems to forget small trifles like Northern Rock, PFI and our public sector pension liabilities. Our real level of public debt is enough to embarrass even the Italians and is the real legacy of 12 years of hard Labour.

Labour now focuses on the politics and tactics of the economic crisis but what are they actually going to do? It's a mystery but I won't hold my breath.

The entire Labour cabinet plus Blair and his cronies should all be prosecuted for misfeasance in public office.

Does the Coffee House realise the depths of anger there is out there in the real world?

Frank P

Nice of them to have that photograph taken; it will save having to take their mugshots invidually before their fingerprints are taken and they are all indicted with conspiracy to subvert our Constutional Monarchy. It will also for useful for placement in History's Hall of Infamy, alongside Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Saddam Hussein, Isama bin Laden, Armydinnerjacket and, if the straws in the wind are telling the truth, Barrack Obama. Ecrasez l'infame!

Now, as the other Francois advised, "Let us now go and tend our gardens" (having cleared out my gall bladder of overnight bile).

mark c

i cant count one that i'd leave runnign a sweetie shop

Mandy watcher

"there is now a truce in the Labour party"

Does anyone really care? Surely the important question is whether the electorate have declared a truce, despite everything that Brown & Co have done to their jobs, their finances, their futures and the society they are forced to live in.

Labour can engineer all the internal reconciliations and rapprochements it pleases; all the beaming insincere declarations of forgiveness and everlasting friendship. It's not going to save them from the revenge of the voters.

Nicholas

"Does the Coffee House realise the depths of anger there is out there in the real world?"

Some of us do. Unfortunately the anger does not seem to be shared by HM Opposition. You know, that opposition that the occupying government now sees its primary purpose as attacking rather than governing the country.

Horrible, horrible times for Britain. Drake's drum ought to be beating somewhere and Arthur awakening from his long sleep.

CS

***Drake's drum ought to be beating somewhere and Arthur awakening from his long sleep.***

Yes and Dick Whittington should be turning again back to London to help us and bringing his mate Robin Hood to give him a hand. Then before we know it, The Famous Five will be flying to the Bank of England in The Wishing Chair to solve the financial crisis.

As the last financial meltdown was only in 1992, Arthur can't have been snoozing THAT long, can he?

Susan Hill

Oh come on, look on the bright side. He got 1m pounds from Hary Potter.

Nicholas

CS: I wasn't referring to the financial crisis.