The politics of distraction

Chuck Unsworth

Why should anyone believe a word of what Darling/Brown says? Time and again these measures when scrutinised turn to dust. Time and again we hear the same old proposals announced as if they were brand new. And time and again these idiots fail to deliver.

What we are witnessing is these people's total divorce from reality. They live in some sort of parallel universe. Now Brown/Darling announces 'reductions' and 'savings'. Is anyone taken in by this? This announcement amounts to under 0.5% of the total budget. How on earth is that going to help? It's our money these clowns are pissing away. For what? What do we get out of this? Only more pain and greater taxes. Not one of us will ever live to see a balanced budget. It will take generations.

greenslime3

The Dirty Tricks Department will be working full out from here to election day. We have already seen Campbell's DNA in some of the recent stuff coming our of Brown, Balls and the Prince of Darkness. What's the betting that Damian is back involved somewhere too. Keep your eyes and ears open; this lot will do anything and everything they can to stay in power.

2trueblue

This morning we had the tories ideas dressed up by Labour and presented to us, no wonder Brown asks Cameron every PMQ what the tories policies are!
Now this latest offering from Brown shows the simplicity of his thinking that we can be distracted so easily from the catastrophic mess he has made over the past 12.65 years. No matter what he does to the 2% we are unlikely to benefit hugely, so if that is the trap we know why it all went wrong under his management at No11, and then moved next door to no10.

By the right, quick ....

No doubt side sepping is good advice on this occasion. It will not be a problem for DC, it's the standing up and showing some true spirit when it is really needed which is his biggest problem.

Watt Tyler

Well am I right in understanding that Osbourne has not ruled out soak the rich measures?

If you know Camerions Tories, frightened as they are not to appear as if they aren't socialists, then I suppose you can predict these things.

If Cameron and George Osbourne wanted to come up with a measure to raise cash very quickly, they could promise to bring us out of the EU (How many billions is that costing us? 1.5 billion a week?). And it would gaurantee them an election victory.

But they don't. Why not? Because they are committed to Britain staying in the EU, which only means closer integration.

I still want to know how they stand on the AGW fraud, the prospect of a World Tax, and AGW "catastraphe" refugees.

Let's listen, perhaps they will respond any time soon...

(tumbleweeds)

Watt Tyler

Chuck Unsworth you have to start to understand - it is you who are divorced from reality. You see, our politicians can dictate to us any reality that they can conceive, and make us live in it accordingly.

Hence the "flat-earthers" insult when Gordon Brown told 50% of Britons that they should shut up about climategate, and thet they were going to get taxed for Climate Change in any case.

And one thing strikes me now more than any other. The stinking mess that we are in can no longer be blamed on Labour alone. All of the parties got us in to the crap we are in now. I forget how that quotation goes now, but not standing up against the bad man is like complicity in the bad deed.

golfwidow

Prudence reappeared in Brown's speech this morning. It would make you laugh if things weren't so serious.

Watt Tyler

Stop press, Greg Clark gives an interview in the Independent (wooing the Lefties again):

"Science should always be sceptical. Questioning theories by subjecting them to rigorous testing is the foundation of scientific method – it's how our body of knowledge was built. The revelations at the University of East Anglia are deeply concerning, but our knowledge of climate change doesn't hang on this set of emails, but on the work of thousands of different scientists, pursuing many separate lines of inquiry over many years."

Er, our knowledge of AGW pretty much does hang on the work of the CRU. There you are. Evasion from the Tories. Still voting for them?

DavidDP

"But the most important thing for them to do is to get the debate back to the state of the public finances and that is inevitably going to involve side-stepping the arguments that Brown wants to pick."

Don't forget to tell Fraser, yeah?

The Bellman

@greenslime3: "... Campbell's DNA in some of the recent stuff coming out of Brown, Balls ..."

I know he puts words in Brown's mouth, but has he now decided to go further? And does Lord Mandelson know?

Chuck Unsworth

@ Watt Tyler

Who has been running the country for the past decade? Who has held the reins of power and enjoyed the riches?

Naomi Muse

Think you're wrong Wat Tyler. The government is the reason we're in this mess.

The government, and in particular Gordon Brown and his former PM Tony Blair, on whose watch it was that the regulation in the City was dismantled and, under whose PMship Gordon Brown refused to allow for the public sector to be reformed.

That's who is to blame. These are not the people who can sort it out.

Liz Brown

How long will it take the MSM to unpick Darling Brown's PBR? I seem to recall that each and every PBR followed by Budget has been met by cheers and lauded by the Beeb and etcs - it is only following further scrutiny (often months) that the gloss starts to peel off. I, for one, have never believed a single word uttered at the time. I won't believe it this time either. This sub Prime Mentalist does not govern for the benefit of the country - Brown governs for the benefit of one gormless gordo.............A General Election now..........

crowbait

I agree with Watt Tyler.The Conservatives have always intended to bind this country into the EU as witness the''cast iron guarantee''.Brussels may throw them a few crumbs,assuming they comprise the next government,but before too long we will be signed up for the Euro and the excuse will be Brussels already sets the rules for the finances,taxes,etc.then it makes sense for us all to have the same currency.Of course we could always do what De Gaulle did and disrupt all proceedings until we get our way but that is probably anti European.

David Lindsay

Were the old nationalised industries part of the public sector? If so, then how are the banks not part of it today? Of course they are. Any curb on public sector pay must extend to them as much as to anyone else. And then there are the private contractors whom local authorities and other public bodies are ludicrously compelled to use instead of providing services in house, and who are currently holding to ransom those bodies, which are their licenses to print public money.

By statute, no one at all should be paid more than the Prime Minister, no company should be permitted to pay any of its employees more than ten times what it pays any of its other employees, and the whole public sector (including, of course, the Prime Minister) should function as a single entity for this purpose, with its median wage fixed at the median wage in the private sector.

Where else have the "mobile" bankers to go? Where would take them at the moment? There would be politically serious calls to deny them entry to many countries. Anyway, they are not really "mobile" at all. The ones here are almost always either British or Irish. They only want to live in one of two cities on earth. And they don't want to live in New York in America's current pitchfork mood.

TGF UKIP

Sorry folks, it doesn't matter how corrupt, incompetent and evil they've been and it matters even less what we think, after all we're nobbut the nerdy anorak 1% who take a serious interest in matters political.

Elections are determined either by an irresistible wave for change created by an opposition e.g Labour 1997, Democrats 2008 or by one party being able to paint a more negative picture of their opponent than the other e.g. Bush 2004 and Labour 2001 and 05. And now again in 2010.

The Tory unwillingness/inability to slug it out with Labour wouldn't matter if they had created their wave for change but they couldn't and they didn't. No theme, no message, no consistency, only on "green ishoos" which the overwhelming majority, very sensibly, couldn't give a toss about.

Brown and Mandelson's confidence is increasingly justified.

Beer Moth

They are not "Labour's dividing lines", they are society's. To the vast majority of the British voting public, one party announcing that they are going to take more tax from those whose estate exceeds a very nice lottery win, is not a small matter, it's just what they want to hear.

And what have the Tories put up to counter such grandstanding? Nothing that's managed to seep out into the public domain. The blue corner are underperforming massively against opponents who are truly pathetic. Or perhaps that's unfair and they are after all, punching as hard as their ability allows?