Cameron's bloody awful too, isn't he?

[porcupine11]

Just saying.

There is no hatred in the Mail, but there is open hatred of Tories in that Guardian article by Brooker.

LilyBolero, deals are often made in politics. Who knows if there were any deals made between Blair and Murdoch when Blair flew over to meet him? But at the end of the day, all of these pale into insignificance compared to taking the country to war on a lie.

A lot of people seem to labour under the misapprehension that if you don't like the Condems, you must like Labour. Not so. You can regard them all as neoliberal gits. (My own preferred position)

Yes, I think you are right, on many of the major issues they are both the same. They differ on freedom, business and social policy, but not much else.

claig, I have a theory about the Iraq war, which is a bit of a thread hijack so will put it below*. I didn't vote Labour at the last election, because I didn't think they were the right people to form the government. However, the sight of Cameron and Clegg walking into Downing Street made me feel sick.

Cameron acts as though he has a huge mandate. But he has no mandate - he couldn't even get a majority after the biggest financial crash in recent history. And as such, I do feel they should be a bit more humble - the LibDems should not have gone into coalition, and a minority government should have been formed, or alternatively, a coalition with representation from all 3 parties. I don't think what we have is democratically valid, because we have policies that no-one has been given the opportunity to vote for (because they weren't in ANY manifesto) being forced through.

A bit of humility, and a bit of responsibility, rather than just meglo-maniacal wielding of power would go a long way.

*My theory on Iraq is this - (and I don't support what happened in Iraq at all, it was a huge huge mistake, and Blair was totally wrong on that) - America were going to go in whatever. George W Bush wanted to prove himself to his father, and finish the job his dad started. My amateur psych theory on this is that he didn't get very much attention from his dad as a child, because Bush Snr was building his political career, and so he wanted to prove something.

Blair realised Bush would go in whatever, and also feared this would have disastrous consequences for world stability. And also, (and possibly more pertinently), that at that moment he had the ear of Bush, and wanted to keep it, but if he didn't go into Iraq with him, we would be labelled as 'against the US'. And so, the evidence was suggested, not because Blair particularly wanted to go into Iraq, but to try and make it as much of a 'coalition force' as possible, and to keep Britain's influence in the US. Certainly a wrong move, but perhaps a wrong move with (initially) good intentions? I don't know, I would like to think so, I think probably they started off with the right idea and then it all got out of control.

There is no hatred in the Mail

did we all hear that?

Riiiiggghhhttt.

Alice, I like your turn of phrase. I might borrow the neoliberal gits phrase if I may.

I think that Cameron missed a lot of open goals in the debates against Brown and he didn't even mention Mrs. Duffy. Nick Clegg was also boosted up by the media and even the Guardian "enthusiastically" backed him. I think it suited people to have a Coalition rather than a Conservative government, so that the government would have a wider base of support to enable it to carry out the huge cuts necessary.

I agree that America was probably planning to go in. But I don't think it had anything to do with Bush trying to impress his father. Bush was only a front figure, he didn't have all the power. He was surrounded by people and advisers and couldn't act alone. Yes, I think Blair knew that the US would go in, and decided to join in, because failing to would not have helped Britain's relationship with the US. I think that is how things go, sometimes there is not as much choice as wished.

slug - you are very welcome. I fear we will all have many more opportunities to use it tyhan any of us wanted or deserve.

I don't think Labour have the answers, but I would rather have a Labour government (or pref a Lab/Lib coalition, which could be really something), working towards a progressive society, than a Tory government, still with no answers, increasing the divide between haves and have-nots, in the name of free markets.

The tories are rather comical, Ill give them that.

Everything they do and think is so wrong that even they realise it in the end and have to U turn!

Its worrying that they have attained some power, I think they would do much better being distributed to deserving villages. Every village wants one.

Cameron is an honest , decent person as Claig says. Unlike Blair who was totally dishonest, a liar and a warmonger. Unfortunately for David Cameron he is too PC, and is alienating many core supporters and will in time come a cropper!

AHAHAHA ironman, how you make me laugh! "honest, decent" LOL!

Its actions, not words, which show the measure of a man.

(although most tories cant tell the difference. Shame)

I think Cameron does think he is honest and decent. But he just isn't, he hasn't twigged that saying something is true doesn't MAKE it true.

There is a very sinister 'politics by division' scheme going on I believe in the country - the way policies are unveiled is to try and corner smaller groups of people - perhaps people on housing benefit, or perhaps HRT payers receiving child benefit, or perhaps people with long term health conditions. There is then a lot of negative press released about said group - eg 'isn't it terrible that families living on housing benefit can live in far better houses than a hard working family could ever afford?'. And then a policy is unveiled that will cut the housing benefit, making many families homeless.

They neglect to say that in London, where this policy is most likely to come into play, because of the high housing costs, 86% of people claiming housing benefit are IN WORK. They are not scroungers, they are hard working people on very low incomes, who need help to be able to live near their place of work. And actually, as a society, we need those people to be able to live and work in areas like Westminster. No-one is going to commute miles and miles into London to do a minimum wage job. And it's not like the people themselves see the money.

LIkewise with the child benefit (my own particular bug-bear). We get lots of 'those with the broadest shoulders must bear the largest burden' and 'we're all in this together' and 'it's not fair that those on lower incomes should pay tax to subsidise those on higher incomes' (a particularly rubbish argument imo, as they don't, those on higher incomes pay FAR more tax and get far LESS benefit). Then they announce a policy that is patently unfair, and crude, because it hits families on middle incomes, when families on double the income are not hit.

Any decent politician would say 'oops we got it wrong' and any honest politician would not try to create these divisions in society. Because a policy should be able to stand up to scrutiny, and so there should be no need to spin it.

How Murdoch Ran Britain now on Channel 4. Explained how Blair changed law allowing non EU interests to run TV stations etc.

I think Cameron (and Clegg as well) get a lot of undue stick, they face a dreadful economic problem. There is a budget deficit of around 10% that is almost an unbelievable figure and must be addressed. Small tweaks won't cut it there needs to be large scale reductions in public spending to eliminate it. As leares said the economy along with the budget deficit also has enormous structural problems so its not exactly a cakewalk. I don't agree with everything that they've done but I accept I'm never going to and it is a very difficult situation to deal with

BLair certainly doesn't have clean hands. But Cameron is the one in the hot seat atm, and we can't do anything about Blair now. Cameron has some major questions to answer imo, esp re Murdoch;

1. Exactly what information was he given re Andy Coulson? And if he wasn't aware of the specific info that the rest of the country knew, why not?
2. Did he discuss BSkyB and what did he say? In which case, he should have appointed a non-Government person to make the decision.
3. Why was Andy Coulson not given the full vetting that previous directors of communication, and subsequent directors of communication were subject to? (The suspicion is that it was because they knew he would fail).

1. Exactly what information was he given re Andy Coulson? And if he wasn't aware of the specific info that the rest of the country knew, why not?

The incriminating, sub judice information (from the likes of Alan Rusbridger) was actually all given to his chief of staff Ed Llewellyn, who didn't pass it on; apparently so that Cameron could say when if the shit hit the fan "I had no idea, nobody told me"

2. Did he discuss BSkyB and what did he say? In which case, he should have appointed a non-Government person to make the decision.

He's not going to tell us, is he?

3. Why was Andy Coulson not given the full vetting that previous directors of communication, and subsequent directors of communication were subject to? (The suspicion is that it was because they knew he would fail).

Well, they did start the full vetting procedure last November, I think? It normally takes 3-6 months. Then Coulson resigned in January - quite randomly IIRC. This is now presumed by some to indicate that the vetting had hit an insurmountable obstacle ( again)

Cameron's hands are filthy

Oh LilyBolero, your theory about Iraq is almost exactly what I had thought at the time. And I'm in complete agreement about the policies hitting the most in need.

Are some saying that our lovely David Cameron is some sort of 'wolf in sheep's clothing?' He may well be, better than being like Miliband a sheep in sheep's clothing! without half of the charisma!

Little Gideon's design for life isn't working, is it? And nor are half the workforce. In spite of all the disabled people workshy fraudsters being hounded found fit to work by Atos. Oh dear.

I do wonder exactly what weather conditions Gideon needs - first the economy shrank due to snow, now it is shrinking due to hot weather. Perhaps he should put in an order now for exactly what temperature he needs.

I was under the impression that part of being a politician was to predict things, and prepare for unexpected events. And it's funny how Germany's economy grew 2.something % despite the tsunami in Japan.

Alice - its definitely not working - the tories want everyone to sit on their sofas on JSA, rather than do a job. This is to get the economy moving, they tell us.

lol.

Hate to say 'I told you so', but well, I did kind of tell you so. Lily. Maybe leaves on the track?