lefties 7:compare the tory.com

[HerHonesty]

sorry couldnt think of anything else. gideon in charge of the economy..

"Why did the LDs think that they could get away with the spin that Labour didn't want a coalition? "

erm...because numerous labour MPs said "we don't want a coalition".

'spin' vs 'fact'.

New thread has to be: 'this will succeed through its success'

Surely new thread has to include the phrase "Dick Clameron"

Strangelybrown - somehow I got the impression that the LibDems were the one who called it off?

"somehow I got the impression that the LibDems were the one who called it off?"

they tried to squeeze every drop. given that the bulk of the labour party had no desire to go into a coalition- and went on the record to say so and therefore torpedo what balls was balls-ing up anyway- then the LDs did reasonably well. By all accounts Clegg was asking for more time to twist cameron's arm more.

pretending labour wanted a coalition is like pretending Diane Abbott and David Blunkett do not exist- its a really nice idea, but its not reality.

I honestly don't the libdems had any real intention of forming a rainbow coalition, it was simply a method of forcing a desperate Cameron to concede on a referendum on AV. Simon Hughes has all but admitted as much really.

I think I might almost have agreed with something Melanie Phillips said - does anyone have any smelling salts?

Yes to the OP's question, and don't forget that child benefit might be cut or taxed too, particularly for those of us whose household income might sound ok but it's all committed already - with 2 aged 3 and 15 months, Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and childcare vouchers are almost as much as what's left of my take home pay after the costs of going out to work.

I am with you Wubbly. Vince Cable was the most honest about this suggesting that it wasnt labour's fault. I really think NC was using Labour to get best deal with Cons.

Anyway, we have a decent chance of them being a decent govt....politics is now about who the better (centrist) managers are more than about ideological diffs.

NC atleast got some decent policies for the vuknerable out of the Tories and DC seems a decent bloke...it his party that scares me.

Sorry, last post is on wrong thread - I was having problems posting and getting a box I could put my password in!

Tories attitude/policy to women makes me uncomfortable.

Yeah well I do happen to think that Brown is a good man so find the tedious national sport of Brown bashing by an ungrateful British public a bit wearing. Can't really be arsed to go there again really especially on this thread.

Agree Beachcomber. I've hated the personal slating he's taken over the last couple of years, totally undeserved. I'm afraid I don't find anything remotely amusing about his treatment. He left his post with incredible dignity, gave time to Dick Clameron time to thrash out a deal when he could've gone to the Queen and stuck it up them and took all the jibes of squatter in return.

I hope history tells a truer story.

wubbly - what did Gordon do in the last couple of years that makes you feel history will judge him more kindly than anyone is now?

Me too. He even has the good nature to JOKE wryly about how he has been treated. At the beginning of the speech he made at the last Labour conference he does exactly that and then goes on to make one of his excellent substantial speeches. We really should be ashamed of ourselves as a nation at the moment. People talk about entitlement but there appears to be an overwhelming sense of entitlement to rip this man to shreds.

Thanks to the link to the Mark Steel article.

hold on...are you suggesting i am not entitled to rip gordon brown to shreds?

first fox hunting....now brown baiting...what is this country coming to.

anyone watching QT? nice to see Melanie Phillips spitting feathers about the LibCon coalition

am feeling more fond of it already

wubbly-was it when she said something about all this talk of the coalition being formed in the national interest made her want to puke or something? I found myself agreeing too

but really-if she is so negative about it-it must have its good points...

this GB bashing stuff is mob mentality I think

it's wearisome

talking of which, am off to bed
night all

Nope, I said I couldn't be arsed to engage with people who think they have some sort of entitlement to rip Brown to shreds.

Agree CatIsSleepy it is mob mentality.

mob mentality...or just a laughably inept, and morally bankrupt prime minister?

Hearing all this 'oh he's so dignified' and 'he has shown such integrity' i am forced to conclude that people are airbrushing their own news intake.

Where is the dignity or integrity in a man so desperate to get power that he abandoned every single principle and stood by while we illegally invaded iraq?

where's the 'proud social values' in a chancellor and prime minister who has overseen a deterioration of the distribution of income?

puhlease....he's been a disaster. of course people are going to rip him to shreds.

Who is anyone? I think you'll find a lot of folk on this thread have a lot of good to say about GB. I haven't met anyone in RL who wasn't moved by his resignation speech.

In my opinion, he has handled the economic crisis with great care and sensitivity for one thing.

Do you remember the recession of the early 90's? Interest rates and reposessions through the roof? Unemployment 'a price worth paying'? Brown has at least made an effort to help ordinary people survive the worst of the crisis, not something to be taken lightly in my view.

I really must get to bed so I'll finish off by saying I think Brown has shown himself to be an honest and decent man, with real political principles, something of a rarity.

what form has Browns effort to help poor people taken?

was that what he had in mind when he resisted calls to regulate the banks properly?

'real political principles'?

nonsense. he did whatever it took to get into number 10.

thatcher had more principles- misguided and deeply divisive principles, but still principles- than brown has proven to have