Hughes and Davis fomenting rebellion?

ollie

In a way, I hope Hughes does keep sounding off - because it will remind the public why the Left should not be allowed any where near govt. As for cracks appearing, of course - it would be unbelieveable if they didn't.amazing how ed and david gastric band are so brave now they are in opposition.

Fergus Pickering

I think, David, you mean fomenting. From the French, you know. Though fermenting is quite good. The cases are different. Davis is sticking by his principles. You may not like them, but they are his. I think he should be accommodated - because, I suppose, I agree with him. Hughes is just being a prat - and can be safely ignored.

2trueblue

Millie2 has to say something to maintain his exposure lest we forget who he is.

BBC, and all the hacks are so keen to find, define and pick apart anything about the coalition that they can cause mischief with. Then what? Back to Liebore? Get outa here.

Verity

Does David Cameron realise how patronising he is being by not wearing a jacket? There are working people who have to find the money for suits to wear to work as a condition of their employment. How dare he be so dismissive of this tradition and formality?

ajs

This piece reminds me of the builder who looks for defects in other builders' work while forgetting the flaws in his own. Haven't we had enough of dreary, pessimistic omen-searching?

HalcyonDays

I suspect you mean 'fomenting' rebellion.

Edmund Jerk

David Davis is a principled politician (a rare breed) and committed civil-libertarian; so why shouldn't he speak up about this?

Anon

Foment, perhaps? Or is the rebellion "brewing"?

fredvallier

Fomenting ... (hic) ... fermenting. Who cares?

Blofeld's Cat

Verity - enough already

Get a life

davidk

Tick tock. The mongrel accomodation AKA the coalition will explode into fragments. Anyone thinking the likes of Cable and Huhne will see this package of cuts through are living in a fools paradise. Clegg will then formally throw his hand in with the Tories and that'll be that.

2trueblue

Verity. it is part of the austerity program.

A better focus could be the Speaker who unilaterally decided that he would with give tradition a miss and turn up in a suit. Liebore let him get away with it. Liebore spent 13yrs disolving our traditions and culture, so lets put the focus where it should be and forget our petty prejudices. We need your great mind to focus on the real things.

David Blackburn

Thanks to those who pointed out that I meant 'formenting' not 'fermenting'. Long day rather than liquid lunch.

Hugh Janus

Still not there David - fomenting!!

Anan

The problem for both of these two clowns is that they are still stuck back in the time when they both thought they could be leader of the party. Hughes had no hope of winning an election, so let's do what everyone else in the country does, and just ignore his mutterings.

Davis on the hand, if he had become leader of the Conservatives in 2005, would at this moment already have resigned after losing the election to Gordon Brown. I can see the SkyNews headlines right now - Gordon beats all the odds and wins! The Labourite media (ie. all of them including the Telegraph) would have had a field day about the political irrelevance of the Tories, proclaiming that the country had totally shifted a left of centre base! More and more ridiculous parties would have been formed, all hard core left, but functioning as pressure groups with one or two MPs each (similar to that silly Green woman).

Davis looks like a sheep, thinks like a sheep, and bleets like one too. It is the luck of this nation, that one last scrap of good fortune it has, that brought Cameron to head the Tories in 2005. We should all be thankful for that. Davis would have seen the Tories reduced to 3rd party status. Listen, David "I went to a comprehensive therefore should lead the Tories" Davis, the party and the nation rejected you. Your cheap stunt over ID cards was yet another embarassment. The level of his political ineptness is clearly displayed by this crass act itself. If he had protested against it but not fidgeted about by holding pointless by-elections, and stayed as Shadow Home, he could have wielded a large amount of power, and been the poster-sheep for the Trilobite wing of the party, and THEN derailed any attempt at a coalition.

Davis is a born loser, and the best thing would be to just ignore him and his ridiculous beliefs and "campaigns" - all of which are exercises at self aggrandisement and nothing more.

In2minds

Edmund Jerk @ June 24th, 2010 7:59pm -
"David Davis is a principled politician (a rare breed) and committed civil-libertarian".

Indeed he is and for some people this is a problem. So the Davis bashers will be out in force as if this concern of his about civil liberties is unmanly and anti-Tory!

Although I do wonder if Theresa May has been 'duffed up' by ACPO, or perhaps there's some deal going on between her and them, you never know?

Chris

Never mind 'fomenting / formenting / fermenting;' the plural of talisman is talismans, as any fule kno.

YorkshireLad

Will Simon Hughes end up pissing into the tent rather than out of it? He's one that has to be watched...but we have enough CCTVs for that.

Frank Sutton

Blofeld's Cat... Get a life

Tell us about your life, Blofeld's Cat.

Hysteria

Verity - his jacket is on the back of his chair. FFS please revert to substantive posts !

Cuffleyburgers

Davis is quite within his rights to make noises about 28 days, he left his shadow cabinet post in order to have more reedom of manouevre.

Hughes is a loathsome piece of lefty shite who is as has been noted elsewhere here a useful reminder of why socialists should be kept well away from the levers of power.

Raffles

Verity - this obsessive hatred of Cameron is becoming a bit scary now. Not wearing a jacket is patronising "working people"? Ummm, i think there is only one person doing the patronising here and its you.

Blofeld's Cat

Frank Sutton - In uniform for first Gulf War, 30 years in public service (quite often in a jacket), took grand piano into Guyana Rainforest 2000 (no joke).

Apart from that quite dull really.

How about yours?

Frank Sutton

Blofeld's Cat - About as dull as yours, really.
It's the riposte "get a life" which never fails to grate.

Blofeld's Cat

Frank Sutton - I rather agree really - I was just so irritated by madame la verite's never-ending carping about DC on the basis of what he wears or what shape his face is.

Still, it keeps her amused, I'm sure, in sunny Mexico.

yank

Not clear on the politics and mood over there, but for example the type of plague of surveillance cameras you're enduring seems to be a constant source of worry here, as we don't favor such generally. Civil libertarians are to be respected, even if they do appear gadfly at times. I see no reason why detention laws should be removed from careful and prudent review. And if you have the goods on a guy, and know he's connected, that too can be reviewed, case by case. The bad guys are bad, and that is identifiable.

As for the budget, watch what they do, and ignore what they say. Rarely do "cuts" take place, even as the fresh taxes become immortal. I like the proposed sale of the student loan book, and it goes against Obama's PURCHASE of same. Well done, my friends.

A good start overall, and a nice example for all.

Mycroft

My theory is that Verity is an agent provocateur working for the Socialist Worker's Party, with the aid of a good supply of free drink; not that I don't agree about Cameron's jacket.

Ahmed Khan

Mycroft - would the free drink be cheap Russian Vodka, as it has cleary affected Verity's thought process (that's if he had any in the 1st place)

AngloWelshDragon

Obvioulsy the Cam/Clegg photo has been taken in the last 6 weeks during which we have had some extremely warm weather. My desk is bathed in subshine and every day I feel like I am being boiled so frankly I am not surprised at the lack of jacket but rather at how fresh and unsweaty Dave looks.

Verity

Anan - "Davis looks like a sheep, thinks like a sheep, and bleets like one too." It's bleats.

Hysteria, His jacket should be on his back, not the back of his chair. This is another one of his dull-witted, plodding pr efforts, like the chocolate orange confrontation at the cash register, riding his bike with his car following him, the Swedish ice floe ... he thinks he's being subliminal when actually, he's being thick.

He should show some respect for the office of Prime Minister and for No 10 - assuming that's where they are. He should be dressed appropriately. He is a self-servingfrankly I am not surprised at the lack of jacket but rather at how fresh and unsweaty Dave looks. twerp.

Raffles - "Verity - this obsessive hatred of Cameron is becoming a bit scary ...". As personal comments seem to the be order of the day on this thread, let me tell you something: I don't like your hotel.

AngloWelsh Dragon: "frankly I am not surprised at the lack of jacket but rather at how fresh and unsweaty Dave looks." Yes, that would be the A/C.

paulg

I thought we all wanted to see a parliament that was representative of the people, where views and opinions can be aired and discussed.

Parliament is not there to rubber stamp government legislations, its function is to question it and hold it to account.

The most ferocious arguments can lead to an equitable solution, so everyone needs to grow up and and see these two charactors as 'representatives of the people' airing their views.

They may disagree but compromise is the only solution to effective government, but at least have a tear up first.

AngloWelshDragon

@ Verity
Looking round at my male colleagues, who have scraped the pennies together from their meagre wages to buy suits, not one of them is wearing a jacket on this hot day despite the a/c humming away.

Verity

Anglo-Welsh Dragon - I imagine Hysteria is having a good laugh, as am I, at the naiveté. The heat and humidity in Houston are very, very considerably greater than what you've got in England just now, and the air-conditioning chills one to the bone. The same in Singapore, which is 12 miles from the Equator. Everyone in offices keeps a jacket - not a cardie, even - a jacket - hanging over the back of their chair because it gets so cold one needs to bundle up.

You must referring to fans, not air-conditioning. In No 10, they will have air-conditioning.

David Lindsay

They are on the same side on civil liberties. As they could be on other matters, although Hughes has the more consistent record on them.

For example, Hughes abstained rather than vote in favour of Maastricht. The Lib Dems set great store by election, by transparency, and by decision-making at the lowest practicable level. So Hughes should begin a campaign for the United Kingdom to adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy in the Council of Ministers until such time as it meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard. He should put down legislative amendments that would require British Ministers to adopt that approach. Diane Abbott would vote for them. So would David Davis. Indeed, who would not, and why?

The Lib Dems are like Labour in that they, and their predecessor parties, voted against the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies year on year between 1979 and 1997. Those Policies are wildly at variance with any sort of historic Liberal principle, and the CFP hits Lib Dem-voting areas particularly hard. So Hughes should begin a campaign, at the very least to reinstate those mysteriously vanished annual votes, and then to use those votes to demand the abolition of those Policies. Diane Abbott would back it. So would David Davis. Indeed, who would not, and why?

And then there is Rupert Murdoch's attempt to obtain the other sixty-one per cent of BSkyB. That highlights the need to ban anyone from owning stakes both in newspapers and in broadcasting, or in more than one national daily newspaper, or in more than one national weekly newspaper, or in more than television station, including more than one ITV regional franchise-holder.

Here is a cause around which to rally an alliance of Lib Dem backbenchers, Labour's Guardian and Mirror Tendencies, and those in tune with the increasing reversion of the Telegraph and Mail titles to High Toryism, or at least to something in that vein. Something, in fact, very much like the position of David Davis.