There was a worrying development today when Norman Tebbit got involved in the election campaign for the Tories. He seemed to want to put a bit of old fashioned Tory backbone into David Cameron, and tell him he needed to do something about Nick Clegg and sharpish!
In an interview for The World at One, old Norman said that the Conservatives needed to ask some “searching questions” about Liberal policies. Well thanks Norman. David would never have worked that out on his own.
But the frightening thing is that he may have let the cat out of the bag. He suggested that Cameron was “shy” about talking up his own proposals “for fear that it would frighten the electors”.
For fear that it would frighten the electors! Wait a minute. What was in that manifesto? Does Norman mean that the manifesto and reality are two different things? That sounds pretty scary doesn’t it?
If there’
s more, maybe we should know about it before we vote? I bet they are trying at this very moment to put Norman back in his box before he gives the whole game away.
Tebbit has often put down Cameron’s “inclusive” form of Conservativism. His is an altogether harsher form based very closely on the teachings of his beloved leader and mad old woman Margaret Hilda. If what Cameron has up his sleeve is a return to THAT sort of Conservativism, then there will be no need to worry about immigration. It will be emigration that will cause the problem.
Norman Tebbit never held seriously high office but he was slave like at Thatcher’s side all the way through the ‘80s. He was once described in a parliamentary debate as a “semi-house-trained polecat”. His Spitting Image puppet was a leather-clad skinhead who was loyal to Thatcher, referring to her as "Leader". Scary old man.
Anyway, on orders from Old Norman it seems, Cameron got stuck into Clegg and the Liberals warning that the public would be cheated if they voted Liberal Democrat out of dissatisfaction with Brown and his bedraggled crew of no hopers. Well, they’re my words, not exactly his. (Actually he might have done better if he'd gone with my words.)
Meanwhile Brown has been sucking up to the Liberals promising to back their calls for electoral reform, just like they did in 1997 and promptly ditched when they got in with a big majority. Never ever believe a politician Mr Clegg.... ah, but you’d know that, being one.
On the other hand Mandleson predicted that support for the Liberals would fade once the public came to understand their policy agenda, including plans to cut child tax credits and child trust funds and an amnesty for illegal immigrants. He didn’t think that the public would “follow through” with their “flirtation” with Nick Clegg.
Of course Mandleson will be really in touch with the man on the street so we can believe him. But I'm suspecting that the questions covering foreign policy in this week's debate are going to favour Nick and his opposition to "the war".
Jeez Nick, it must be hard to be the centre of so much attention. I bet Gladstone was the last Liberal leader to make such a splash!
Pics: Norman Tebbit and Nick Clegg
In an interview for The World at One, old Norman said that the Conservatives needed to ask some “searching questions” about Liberal policies. Well thanks Norman. David would never have worked that out on his own.
But the frightening thing is that he may have let the cat out of the bag. He suggested that Cameron was “shy” about talking up his own proposals “for fear that it would frighten the electors”.
For fear that it would frighten the electors! Wait a minute. What was in that manifesto? Does Norman mean that the manifesto and reality are two different things? That sounds pretty scary doesn’t it?
If there’
s more, maybe we should know about it before we vote? I bet they are trying at this very moment to put Norman back in his box before he gives the whole game away.Tebbit has often put down Cameron’s “inclusive” form of Conservativism. His is an altogether harsher form based very closely on the teachings of his beloved leader and mad old woman Margaret Hilda. If what Cameron has up his sleeve is a return to THAT sort of Conservativism, then there will be no need to worry about immigration. It will be emigration that will cause the problem.
Norman Tebbit never held seriously high office but he was slave like at Thatcher’s side all the way through the ‘80s. He was once described in a parliamentary debate as a “semi-house-trained polecat”. His Spitting Image puppet was a leather-clad skinhead who was loyal to Thatcher, referring to her as "Leader". Scary old man.
Anyway, on orders from Old Norman it seems, Cameron got stuck into Clegg and the Liberals warning that the public would be cheated if they voted Liberal Democrat out of dissatisfaction with Brown and his bedraggled crew of no hopers. Well, they’re my words, not exactly his. (Actually he might have done better if he'd gone with my words.)
Meanwhile Brown has been sucking up to the Liberals promising to back their calls for electoral reform, just like they did in 1997 and promptly ditched when they got in with a big majority. Never ever believe a politician Mr Clegg.... ah, but you’d know that, being one.
On the other hand Mandleson predicted that support for the Liberals would fade once the public came to understand their policy agenda, including plans to cut child tax credits and child trust funds and an amnesty for illegal immigrants. He didn’t think that the public would “follow through” with their “flirtation” with Nick Clegg.
Of course Mandleson will be really in touch with the man on the street so we can believe him. But I'm suspecting that the questions covering foreign policy in this week's debate are going to favour Nick and his opposition to "the war".
Jeez Nick, it must be hard to be the centre of so much attention. I bet Gladstone was the last Liberal leader to make such a splash!
Pics: Norman Tebbit and Nick Clegg
Actually I think Norman Tebbit was a very genuine politician. Some said that about his loyalty to Margaret Thatcher but there's no loyalty these days from anyone.
ReplyDeleteHe's a most courteous and interesting gentleman too. No pomposity or arrogance. Just a pleasure to meet.
It's smashin' fun this, whether it aw blaws awa' or no. Ye can hear the panic in Tory an' Labour HQs an' 'hing oan lads, it'll aw be fine' an' 'jist wait they find oot whit a liberal is'
ReplyDeleteDae they think we're aw daft? We ken whit liberals are. They're harmless creatures, mibbe a bit saft, sometimes a bit odd, like they dinnae get oot much, but nuthin' tae be feart o'.
Leavin' Mr Thorpe aside, they've aw been nicely turned oot young men ye could take hame tae yer mother. Well no Ming obviously, that wid be like takin' yer granda hame an' no Mr Grimond he wid be near as bad, an' if ye took Mr Ashdown hame yer mother wid be askin' whit ye had been up tae an' if ye took wee Charlie hame ye widnae get back efter dark oot for a month an' she wid never believe ye had met Mr Steel at the dancin', she wid think ye had turned holy.
Apart fae them tho, they're no bad.
Well Subrosa, to wach his or her own. I never had the 'pleasure' of meeting him and now he has been made an aristocrat I doubt I ever shall, but I think of him as a nasty right wing Reagon-Thatcherite. The kind that brought in the culture of greed and self.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot had loyal lieutenants too.
LOL Sophia. I see you've been through them all. Which one was the best dancer....
ReplyDeleteLooking at pictures of Jeremy he seemed to be very well turned out, in a sort of 1930s way. I suspect your mother would have been after him hrself. He has money too.. and he must getting on a bit!
Do you think you could take Nicky the lad home to your mother?
Ahm feart:0(
ReplyDeleteAye Scunnert, and so you should be. Sophia may be wanting to take you home to her mother!
ReplyDeleteOh, about Norry? Sorry Baron Norry....
Don't worry about him mate. Scotland won't have any truck with a self avowed right wing nut job like that!
Well Tris,I'd rather have Norman Tebbit on my side than Peter Mandelson. Make of that what you will.
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding Cameron's fresh new face on the Conservative Party, there must still be some good old fashioned right wing Tories running around who, besides having a hidden agenda, would also know exactly what to do about young Nick.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to adopt, even slightly, "American-style" campaign tactics like the televised presidential debate, then you might take the entire American political ball of wax....especially the tactics of the far right wing. There is nothing like simple character assassination to get rid of a pesky political rival. (Take note of the Barack Obama images at Tea Party rallies, depicting him as Adolph Hitler.)
And it seems as regards Nick Clegg, that an American-style Tory would not even have to go that far beyond the pale. I finally shook last Thursday night's Nick Clegg stardust out of my eyes and did something so simple as read his Wikipedia Bio (which Tris had so sensibly and politely pointed me to.)
*GASP*.....HORRORS!!!!!!
I sensed the blood in the water when I encountered suspicious FOREIGN and aristocratic influences in his background.....not British aristocracy mind you, but RUSSIAN nobility. And we haven't even gotten to the good part yet.
SEX with "no more" than 30 women (by his count). Youthful defiance of German law involving the destruction of rare cactus plants......ARSON surely, but also something of a crime against nature one might say. And *DOUBLE GASP* he DOESN'T believe in GOD! He's an atheist with small children under his care. Why, by American political standards, the man is a veritable gold mine of depravity.
So American political consultants would know what to do about this dude. A good old dose of character assassination would be much more likely to land him in prison than in a powerful position in Commons. But then, in politics and probably most every other way, the British are much more sensible people than the Americans. Our political tactics probably wouldn't work there. Pity ;-)
Tris: After viewing Mr. Tebbit's photograph, it occurs to me that David Cameron should definitely not entertain the notion of asking him to be the Conservative Party representative in the next televised debate. Not that Cameron actually would of course, but...well...you get my point, about the nature of televion and image.
ReplyDeleteDespite Lord Norman 'on your bike' Tebbits wishes, I still think the Liberals shall die off- this is silly really, there is no way in heck they are getting 29% of the vote!
ReplyDeleteThat would be fantastical, absurd, not a chance. Mark my words, thursday night debate on sky shall be the real game changer when wee Nick Clegg finds himself out in the cold...following the great British tradition of raising people up so we can smash them.
You know Dean, I think you are probably wrong there.
ReplyDeleteI wondered how it could be that:
with a government in for 13 years, creating a depression like they did, the worst in living memory;
having troops killed in what was an illegal war by UN standards, and a hopeless war by anyone’s standards;
a parliamentary party with its trotters in the trough;
a Lords contingent who had actually jumped into the trough and to hell with trotters;
topped off with a cabinet of lightweights;
and a with a prime minister whose charm rating is on a negative scale and for whom everything ends in disaster,
that the Tories should have been romping home in opinion polls.
After all they had 13 years to find the right leader, and finally it seemed as if at last they had;
they’d managed to persuade people that these days Eton wasn’t all that separatist;
that Oxford and the Bullingdon didn’t mean that they didn’t know how much eggs cost and what a bus was;
that although they’d had their trotters in the trough every bit as much as Labour, Cameron had come down like ton of bricks on the thieves;
that even though some of their members thought that people who travelled second class on teh train (me, for example) were of a different species that they were all going, duck houses, moats, and helipads with them.....
But no, they were only ever around 10% in front of King Midas in Reverse; the bloke who could turn milk sour with just one smile.
Then along came Nick. And he changed the whole game.
I wondered at the British people putting up with the nonsense that was our politics; that for example the Tories needed 5% more votes to break even, that there were all these safe seats, that the cabinet comprised people who had been ennobled to bring them, that the parliament could end when the prime minister said.... that they could all steal from us and get away with it, that the four unlucky scapegoats felt that they were not just due first class travel, but above the law too and shouldn’t stand in the dock like ordinary thieves, or could get away with benefit fraud because they had a title.
But the Brits are not THAT stupid after all. The Welsh and the Scots have got their own parties, parties that vote only on matters that affect their respective Celtic nations; the poor English always felt that they only had the big old tired discredited two. Then Nick came out last Thursday and talked sense.
And I have a feeling that nothing will ever be quite the same again. When you have The Noble Baron Mandleson saying without being asked about it, that it’s way past the time that electoral system was changed, “I agree with Nick” has just got serious.
You big boys will have to learn to live with the new configuration methinks.
Danny: You make a good point about image. It has ever been thus, although people try to tell us that it’s all the new television politics, even in the days of the town hall meeting and old fashioned hustings, personality counted and so did looks.
ReplyDeleteIt always has in politics as in everything else. We like nice looking smiling, clean, well turned out people as much as we like the things they say.
A clever guy may know all there is to know, but if people have nodded off after the first paragraph he won’t get his message through.
Brown has a real problem as far as that is concerned. He looks awful, he sounds awful and he’s boring. Tebbit is frightening though. Mrs Thatcher’s trusty lieutenant (except when he was stabbing her in the back). It will be hard for him to live down some of the things he was responsible for.
Yeah Danny, they have tried to discredit him with being a bit foreign, always a bit of a problem in a pretty xenophobic island nation distrustful of foreigners unless we are ruling them. The arson thing has been raked over and someone tried to blow on it to reignite the flame, but it really is old news. I heard someone mention that he had slept with 30 women. The trouble with that is that a good selection of the women listening wished it had been them and a good proportion of the men were just p[lain jealous as they counted their conquest on the fingers of ....er well, one finger.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is these accusations are coming from people representing parties that are so tainted that wee Nick’s not outrageous behaviour is not really noticed against their own.
Even when you look under the skin .... Vince Cable has been a star of the recession. He was the one who warned about the credit bubble years before it happened. Whether you like him or not I’ve lost count of the times that people have said to me that they don’t much care who the next prime minister is but could they please have Vince Cable at the Treasury....
SR: That's hardly saying much for him. I'd rather have Judas Iscariot on my side than Peter Mandleson.
ReplyDelete