Two blasts from the past

ollie

Watching this clip reminds of the huge trap Labour and Blair laid for the Tories about huge budget increases - and any reduction in those budgets was painted as a savage cut by the "nasty party".

Here's the rub - it worked for over ten long years.

Interesting how Brown's line of defence - ie - huge lists of stats - was the same as Blairs.

Adam

Also shows what a powerful performer Blair was - as a tory i reluctantly admit that cameron is not in his league

Moraymint

... and the Conservative Party wonders why people like me accuse them of having failed to oppose Marxism for the past 13 years.

The Labour Party in government has been a catastrophe. The Conservative Party in opposition has been a disaster.

Our nation will pay for the abject failure of our political class for at least a decade; probably longer.

Richard

Class will always shine through.
How the tories must wish Cameron was half the politician Blair was.
If you close your eyes and listen to Cameron you notice his script hasn't change from all those years ago.
The tories still asking stupid questions and getting all indignant when rebuked from the chair....he has move the parting in his hair though...wonder why?
Tony you are sorely missed

Alex

"... as a Tory" says Adam. Yes Adam, we all really believe you.

JONNY

Not yet in his league for Bliaring you mean Adam

Tiberius

John Major was of course too much of gentleman (not to mention in possession of his sanity) to give the reply to Blair that was so warranted: wanchor, wanchor, wanchor.

denverthen

Ah, the old blogging trick. When stuck for something meaningful to contribute, stick a couple of ancient, largely pointless YouTube embeds up and leave the rest (hopefully) to the commenters.

Weak, weak etc...

malone

I disagree with your intimation that Cameron et al were complicit in the free for all. To complain about the deficit in my mind (an NHS Consultant Surgeon) is to complain that the NHS is not spending within its means and going over budget ie. not being run efficiently.
It does not mean they wanted another 10-20 Billion thrown at it so it would n't be in the red, just that they wanted whatever the budget was spent as well as possible.
With regards to 'budgets being raided to cut defecits', money (in the region of 0.5 billion) that at SHA level was supposed to be for education and training of NHS staff ( a very important expense) was held back and then diverted to top up the deficit to make it a much more politically palatable figure and below one billion.
The bottom line is that there has been an almighty splurge, no real reform, short term politically driven targets and no increased output both relative and in some cases absolute.

malone

So Richard, alias John Prescott, says Tony Blair is sorely missed.

Richard, my old chipolota, I take that as an admission from old 3 Jags himself that with Gordon the Moron you are stuffed!

Matthew Taylor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8DhBR3qbFw&feature=related

Here again, from December last year, talking about annual increases in capital expenditure forecast by Brown, Cameron is so interested in tripping him up on the figures he misses the big picture that such increases are alarmingly large and unjustified.