Murphy sets Labour's new strategy a-rolling

Patriccia Shaw

Perhaps they should refocus defence strategy to support the diasadvantaged Palestinians rather than doing all they can to bolster Israel and do down the Peace-loving Iranians

Holly ......

So, in a nutshell, Labour have spent the last couple of years opposing everything with little, if any result from the public.
Realising that they are useless with the economy and even more useless at governing, they are sending out the 'less tainted' bods to try and dupe the public.

Nice try, but too little too late...Which should go down well as another rubbish slogan, up there with too far, too fast, hurting, but not working etc, etc, etc.

Labour 'manouvres' are afoot and they are soooo obvious even the 'stupid' can see it.
Miliband is in BIG trouble and a 'new' leader IS on the cards.
Balls & Coop need not apply.

Axstane

Peace-loving Iranians???

PShaw - the UK has no part at all in the operations or finances of Israel or its army. We do give aid, not military or weapons, to the Palestinians - nor should we.

Hamas and the other terrorist groups need only to cease their constant attacks on Israelis and the Israel/Palestine conflict would be ended that day with sensible negotiations in progress within a month. The ANC and the IRA found out that it worked better than violence.

Andy H

the truth is that these are the same people that mismanaged the defense budget for so long, there is literally nothing credible that they can say apart from "we wouldn't have started from here" whilst not acknowledging that they were the very reason we were here to start with.

It takes a certain type of brazenness to be so two faced, but I hope that most of the British people that don't have a vested interest remember the truth.

AAE

"They needed to claw back fiscal credibility . . . "
I didn't know they ever had any. In saying they will review the defence budget, they really make an easy choice for themselves, but what about tackling the £170 billion spent on the Quangos. How far would their new-found fiscal rectitude stretch in dismantling this enormous and wholly pernicious Marxist structure?

Ed P

I read it as, "Labour will give more details of its tRough spending decisions", which seems more appropriate. These spendthrifts know no other way.

Russell

Labours new strategy

Tell the electorate labour totally messed up the UK immigration policy deliberately.

Labour were wrong to 'form' the FSA, take away regulation powers from the Bank of England leading to a mess up of the financial sector and almost bankrupting the country.

Labour messed up the NHS creating thousands of non nursing overpaid management jobs, killing thousands of patients with mrsa/Cdiff etc.

Labour messed up the economy employing over a million extra public sector employees who were not required, selling all the gold cheap, awarding £billions in fraudulent pfi contracts whilst paying off all our chums and family members (and filling our bank accounts with back handers).

Labour allowed our armed forces to go to an illegal war under equipped and under funded, overspending funds on MoD civilians and 'jollies'.

This list of admissions is endless ranging from Education to Transport and every other area of government control.

This new 'strategy' would not allow labour to win an election ever again in my lifetime, but would at least be honest to the electorate who were conned,cheated and had their lives ruined by incompetent cheating low life labour politicians.

TrevorsDen

And which other defence programmes and/or capability would Labour have cut if the Nimrods had not been scrapped?
The man like his party is a charlatan.

The defence budget was in a mess... it was barely worth the term budget and its priorities totally skewed to winning votes in Scotland.

A labour shadow minister coming out purporting to support cuts for defence is easy ... when will they come out and support cuts in local government and in reforming pensions and cutting back on local govt and civil service employment?

In terms of defence labour spent on 2 giant aircraft carriers without catapults and an aircraft which Obama is likely to cut. The coalition is wise to spend to have a catapult fitted but Murphy will not say what other programme must be cut to pay for Labours stupidity.

pete-s

As Labour are thinking about being honest. Then they can explain why they refused to have a defence review for 12 years.

George Laird

Dear All

It is hilarious that Labour MP Jim Murphy said that the Labour Party should avoid ‘shallow and temporary’ populism over spending cuts.

Where are their policies?

It is said that you can drown in two inches of bath water, if Labour policies were bath water, would anyone get wet?

The idea of mirroring isn’t new but it shows I feel a weakness in the Labour Party, rather than setting the agenda, they opt for trailing behind Cameron and agreeing with him.

It looks to me that the only real disagreement in the Westminster Village is that the Tories are in power and the Labour Party aren’t!

What happened to ideas and vision and big decisions, a blue print for the future?

How can we have a battle of ideas when no one is willing to come up with an idea and campaign for change?

I don’t know how long Ed Miliband has been leader because he hasn’t acted like a leader and frankly for this piece, it isn’t worth the time to google him and find out.

In Scotland, the Labour Party for 4 years from 2007 to 2011, never worked, never produced policies, vision, ideas and thought they were celebrities who just had to sit back and wait their turn to regain power.

Result, a landslide for the SNP as Labour wasn’t seen as credible.

Down south the Labour Party isn’t as inept as their Scottish branch but Miliband is drifting. He doesn’t look like a Prime Minister in waiting, nor does he pass as a statesman, I expect him to come to the despatch box and sell double glazing…at a discount.

Politics shouldn’t be about populism, it shouldn’t be about personalities, it should be about policies, that is the bedrock of politics.

Ed Miliband stands on quicksand and despite flopping about; he isn’t getting anywhere in any direction.

Someone should send Miliband to political boot camp to toughen him up. They say the longest journey starts with a first step, that first step should be getting policies and driving home how much better Britain would be if these were introduced.

Time to fight the fights that need fought.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Dennis Churchill

Defence is an easy target for Labour but unless the welfare budget is tackled and the public sector reduced the economy cannot improve.

Andy W H

Years of expensive Labour actions in government, including but not restricted to the most recent 13 years, speaks louder than cheap talk in opposition.

The Oncoming Storm

Of course Murphy has no explanation as to why Labour failed to get a grip on the MRA4 debacle during it's 13 years in power!

Leaving that aside Murphy is a very effective and skilled politician, why on Earth didn't Labour get him to run for their Scottish Labour I'll never know, he could easily get the best of Salmond, Labour may yet regret that failure.

Redneck

The Oncoming Storm

I suspect it is because he is a fairly sectarian politician and would not appeal to the majority in Scotland plus, for the political heavyweights, Westminster is understandably a much more attractive option?

Sir Everard Digby

The Oncoming Storm:

The term 'effective politician' should be viewed as an insult - 1997-2010 produced swathes of them. Sadly beyond politics they have zero use. Even in opposition they are proving to be inept; the only thing they were good at was spending swathes of money,mainly on their own constituents.

Withouta state sponsored wallet,they are nothing.

michael

After a decade of Tory naval gazing, New(same old) Labour were left entirely off the hook with the current consequences. The Coalition are equally capable of mess making, the biggest lesson of the last administration has to be that governments of all colours need holding to account. Britain needs a credible opposition party... Some chance. Opposition politics has turned into a self indulgent mega-sulk.

Man in a Shed

There was some Labour comedian ( can't have been a serious shadow cabinet member surely ) on the World at One trying to blame to coalition for not getting the deficit down and not reducing VAT and not spending more on Labour pet employment schemes (remember mostly in the parasitic public sector ). Don't they vet their spokespeople to discover if they suffer from moron syndrome ?

Heartless Curmudgeon

. . . the Party's Ballsist wing . . . - how foolish of me, - I read it as something quite different, - but on second thoughts . . .

Cynic

"In truth, the shadow defence secretary's words fit perfectly into Labour's plan to sound more fiscally responsible this year." In truth it is a plan merely to sound more fiscally responsible. In reality, they have never been fiscally responsible whenever the electorate has been deluded enough to hand them the reins of power.

Cynic

@Man in a Shed re VAT; I don't suppose there was any mention of the EU's intention of extending VAT to children's clothes, all food, books and newspapers, was there? All in the name of "harmonisation" of course (although why the rest of the EU couldn't harmonise with us, I don't understand). Money that doesn't go into the Treasury's coffers where it might do some good, but helps to prop up the anti-democratic EU and the fatally flawed euro! I'd like to see the abolition of VAT and the (re)introduction of a GB purchase tax that stays in the country.

Shazza

P.Shaw - are you for real?

Forlornehope

I'm old enough to remember how Labour not only cut up the TSR2 prototypes (I think there's one in a museum somewhere) but also scrapped all the tooling (very expensive) prior to the 1967 election to prevent a resurrection.

David Ossitt

Shazza

“P.Shaw - are you for real?”

Hello Shazza the regulars here suspect that Patriccia Shaw is a conglomerate, he/she/it have posted under this cognomen sometimes with the one ‘c’ and of late with two.

Every post has but one agenda ‘Palestinians’, if you carefully study these posts you will see the clues that lead us to think P.S. is not an individual, however to do so is not to be recommended, at the very least you will develop a bad headache and at worst, who knows.

Dismiss

Defence is by the most optimistic spin measures a maximum of 2% of GDP. Kicking the shit out of the armed forces is great sport for both sides of the house and the spittle flecked public sector haters here but it's not going to do anything to solve the country's financial problems.

Dimoto

For Joe Public, even educated and informed Joe Public, Labour second-guessing the government on cuts is just boring.
They were the people who landed us in this fix.
By the time the next election is due, the cuts agenda will be fading away, so it's all academic.

People might start paying attention if they came up with something new and promising.

Not much chance of that.