aibu to wonder why someone who worked as PR for ITV can now run the country?

I don't really think it does matter who gets elected. I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference. I think Blair didn't have much choice about a lot of things.

Ed Miliband has a lot to prove, obviously.

If it is about the whole team and party does it really matters who gets elected? Sounds like an apologist comment to me.

I think it is a good question. It's not about Cameron being posh or not, it's really about is PR work for ITV sufficient experience to run a country? I think it is, because it's not about Cameron on his own, there is a whole team and party to guide him.
Also his PR skills are useful in selling his policies to the public. Image is all important nowadays, so being in the image industry is what parties require.

It does happen, hence the debate on this thread.

charming, thought it was quite an interesting question myself

I don't really know what your argument is anymore tokyo, you keep changing it. It just seems that you want one, and argument. Can't keep up i'm afraid.

" I didn't vote for them this time for the first time in my life "

I voted Labour, as the least worst option, as I have done since (and including) 1983. Are you proud of voting LibDem Tory?

"Interesting that you have not once commented on whether you think Cameron would have done things differently with regard to the banks."

You appear to think that in order to regard one side's leader as a witless tool of the interests of large companies I have to praise the other. At least Cameron makes no secret of his taste for money and protecting the rich, but in the end he's worse than Brown. Brown talked crap ("British jobs for British workers" was a particular low point: if you're going to take the slogans of the BNP, you need to be willing to have the politics of the BNP) and attempted to claim he cared, while pursuing policies that had the opposite effect.

Labour never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and the cowardice of the PLP in crowning Brown unopposed, a man who was unfit for office in almost every regard, is a shame they will bear to their political graves.

And I, like many people, feel totally betrayed by the Lib dems.

Look, I was frustrated with Brown and Blair. I didn't vote for them this time for the first time in my life [like many other I presume] But compare Brown with the totally disingenous and oily Cameron, who has known nothing but absolute entitlement and privilege in his life, and has the empathy capability of an ant, and I know which one I'd choose.

Interesting that you have not once commented on whether you think Cameron would have done things differently with regard to the banks. He hasn't done much about it so far has he?

"Brown, who came from the old Labour tradition, wanted the best for ordinary people, and his policies proved that."

Yes, deregulating the banks and opening the floodgates on immigration of low-cost unskilled labour definitely helped the ordinary people. Removing employment protection so that our workers are the easiest to sack in Europe definitely did, too. Removing the 10p tax rate, that was good for working people.

I said historically the point of Labour is to make things different for ordinary people. You, tokyo, challenged that. So I gave some examples. Now you are talking about New Labour, giving up on the previous argument. New Labour is a very different animal, one I have misgivings about. It came about though as the only way to defeat Thatcherism. Because selfishness and individualism is the currency of capitalism and the society in which we live, largely shaped by Thatcher. I still feel Brown, who came from the old Labour tradition, wanted the best for ordinary people, and his policies proved that.

funny how Jeff Randall has changed his mind about Cameron now

I've changed my mind about Cameron, he has what it takes

I am amazed people think Dave has integrity. He literally has none.

At the job daddy got for him, he spent almost seven years as director of corporate affairs for Carlton Communications, Ian King, the Sun's business editor, describes him as "poisonous" and "a smarmy bully who regularly threatened journalists who dared to write anything negative about Carlton"

Another person he worked with there:

Jeff Randall, writing in The Daily Telegraph in 2005, said he would not trust Mr Cameron "with my daughter's pocket money".

"To describe Cameron's approach to corporate PR as unhelpful and evasive overstates by a wide-ish margin the clarity and plain-speaking that he brought to the job of being Michael Green's mouthpiece," wrote the ex-BBC business editor.

The 'deal' he was involved in while there to take on Sky with ON Digital was a disaster and lost lots and lots of money (doesn't matter to Dave though)

Oh it was equally disastrous when he was 'advising' Norman Lamont throughout Black Wednesday, which saw the pound crash out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

His judgment is appalling. Some people have it, others don't. He has none.

Let's face it. He has had good press. That is why he is there. The fat cat Tory press wanted a Tory government. There is a mountain of shit that could be written about him but it never is because he suits their needs. (e.g. attacks on BBC)

As for integrity, don't make me laugh/cry. I could write an essay about how he does not have any. But can't be arsed. Anyone who knows what integrity really is would find it laughable that he is being discussed in this context.

Gloria De Piero. Luciana Berger. Chinyelu Onwurah. And the piece de resistance, Jack Dromey.

Many of us who have been active in the party can attest to what Tokyo is saying.

We've been saying for years that local people should stand for election, but no, the party parachute their faves into safe seats. People who have never lived in the area, shown any interest in it, and have never done any job outside of politics.
We've been saying for years that immigration si a serious issue in some parts of the country and has to be addressed.
We've been saying for years that Gordon Brown is a big fat bully who never ever listens.

We have reaped what we have sowed.

Harriet Harman's aunt is the Countess of Longford. Compared to her, Cameron's a bourgeois arriviste.

"Harriet Harmen went one of the most expensive and exclusive schools in the country but no-one mentions it unlike with Cameron and Osborne."

I think there was a point a few years ago when more of the Labour front bench were privately educated Oxbridge graduates than the Tories could muster.

Ed Balls is a particularly egregious example. His father actively campaigned for the closure of grammar schools, and then as soon as he succeeded sent Ed private. Balls of course has no shame, so doesn't see this as rather undermining his policies on selection. He could, of course, point out the hypocrisy of soi-disant leftists who want comprehensive education for the little people just so long as their precious darlings don't have to mix with them (after all, if Harman and Blair can do it, it's hardly a crime) but he won't, because he father was one of the biggest hypocrites of the lot.

Does their background really matter, I'm more interested in what I think they are going to do

O'm kinda with Po and Hudd on this really

The Old Labour- Kinnock (Glenys is very good in my experience, helped with my dissertation on slavery), John Smith- that's labout who ahd a clear role and you either loved or ahted but you knew where you were.

New Labour- less so.

But tehn Lib Dems not exactly Old Lab either; for every Vince (yes Oxbridge but early years lot less so) there's a Clegg.

This is my problem really: if you want a party that protects you and you are MC, possibly rising higher in the class system you ahve optoiions.

otherwise- nope. There's a huge gap. And whether you'd vote for them or not, people should have options, not three rather similar groupings from the same backgrounds.

The people on the Labour frontbench are from very wealthy backgrounds as well. Harriet Harmen went one of the most expensive and exclusive schools in the country but no-one mentions it unlike with Cameron and Osborne.

" Neil kinnock was the first of his family to go to university [Cardiff] , John Smith went to Glasgow, Michael Foot turned to Labour after Oxford "

That's a man never won an election and is now in the Lords and two dead men who never won an election. They're the past. Tell us about the present Labour front bench.

"These were men with real experience of the hardships ordinary people face."

And their relevance to "New Labour" is...? They are three people whose policies resulted in powerless opposition. Foot led the Labour Party to one of its most crushing defeats (the longest suicide note in history) which resulted in a further 14 years of Tory mis-rule, Kinnock had electoral victory in his grasp but pissed it up the wall in Sheffield, and Smith, like JFK, has a very small list of achievements bolstered by de mortuis nil nisi bonum.