Saturday 30 January 2010

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE ........




Gordon Brown has plans to stay as Labour leader after the election even if his party is defeated according to The Sunday Times. He has told colleagues that he won’t stand down unless the Tories win a significant majority. He considers his enemies too divided to force him out. If the May election is indecisive and there is the possibility of a second election he believes he should lead them into it.

With many of his fiercest critics standing down at the election and others likely to lose their seats, he is optimistic that his plan can succeed. Friends of Brown believe he will want to remain if David Cameron’s majority is 20 seats or less. He is banking on a hung parliament or a small majority for the Tories resulting in a second general election within a short period. A hung parliament is looking increasingly likely with two polls this weekend showing a narrowing of the Conservative lead.

Brown’s critics reckon that his decision to remain is part of a plan to ease his friend Ed Balls into the party leader’s job. And Brown is supposedly opposed to Harriet Harman becoming a caretaker leader during any leadership contest, like Margaret Beckett did following John Smith’s death in 1994.

In recent weeks Balls has been courting Labour MPs, trade unionists and grassroots supporters at party events. It is a reasonable guess that if there is a rout, much of what remains of the Labour Party will be from the Left, which is Balls’ natural constituency. In opposition Labour chose their shadow cabinet by votes. However, these votes are traditionally rigged by the Whips and it is reckoned that, with Gordon Brown still in charge, Nick Brown, the chief whip, would use these tactics in Balls’ favour and against the likes of Harman and Miliband, leaving Balls with the coveted shadow chancellor’s job. This is a high profile position giving Balls the chance to shine savaging the Tories' financial policies.

It is fair to say that if the Tories form the next government, support for them could collapse once their plans to cut spending, however much they are trimmed back, start to be felt. The last time Labour left the country bankrupt, Thatcher came in with a drastic cutting policy. It hurt people badly and, had it not been for the Falklands Conflict and the short sharp win it afforded Britain, it is quite likely that she would not have won a second term.

Brown knows that more war is the last thing that the population wants now. Without a war victory to save him, Cameron’s time at the top may be very limited; a single term would be no surprise...and that is what Brown is counting on. We may not have seen the last of Prime Minister McCavity!


Update: Dean the Tory has a really funny clip of Cameron giving Balls a real put down at: http://new-right.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-love-cameron-for-this-alone.html
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19 comments:

  1. I hate Ed Balls.

    I really honestly hate him.

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  2. LOL....

    I was going to say that it's not a good thing to hate, Dean.... But then I looked at the little oink's photo there, and frankly....

    .....you carry on mate.... hate away!

    BTW I see that Munguin managed to get the pictures moved to where he wanted them, as you suggested, but it wont work for me ;-(

    It's not easy being dim!!!

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  3. I don't see this working no matter how bad the Tories are. Standards will be pretty low after the election then.

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  4. Balls may be successful with what's left of the MPs, but he'll have a job to win an election in middle England. He has the electoral appeal of Michael Foote there....

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  5. They must really hate their own party to subject it to this.

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  6. Nope. They just have an overbearing sense of self importance and superiority. And a driving ambition that sweeps common sense right out the window...

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  7. Sorry for using the word 'hate', but I cannot in al honesty pretend to even tolerate this horrible tribalist worm. He briefs against his fellow chaps in his own Party- what a little Draper!

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  8. Dean... (Within reason) feel free to say what you think.

    I've now linked to your post which is really funny....

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  9. It's like two bald men fighting over a comb.
    Both support green taxes, war of terror, the EU, immigration and multiculturalsm.
    So please don't vote for either of them.
    Remember tory rule.
    Major sleeping with Edwina
    Aitkens sword of truth
    Carrington resigns over Falklands disaster
    Thatcher has tea with Pinochet while his team torture thousands at home
    Milligan shames chelsea
    Archer writes some cheques
    Al fayed hepls haiti and harrods with brown envelopes.
    etc etc.....

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  10. Gordon is clearly unaware of how unpopular he is. It is such a shame that the Tories have such a bunch of no hopers that they cannot establish a clear lead over Labour despite having very similar policies.

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  11. Anon: There's not much to pick and choose.

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  12. Munguin: It seems that Gordon is unaware of his own status in the country. Amazingly, given that it is so low.

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  13. Sad.

    Sad. That is what this post is, when your seperatists cantv win the argument you play the man and not the ball.

    Labour would do well under Balls, or indeed any true leftwing politician. Not like the right wing, wannabae-Torie SNP lot!

    The SNP have done NOTHING for the common man,

    they have however-

    1. cut business rates on fat cat businesses. Nice to know where the priorities are!

    2. push for a seperatist agenda vote- costing millions which should be spend on new PFI schools for the many, not the few.

    3. They have tried to stop new nukes on the clyde, this will costs thosands of jobs.

    Nice to know what the SEPERATISTS priorities are.

    Your all as bad as the torie scum,

    Peter.

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  14. Cut in business rates was indeed a Tory proposal: one of the practical ones that they put forward to get the budget through. But small businesses create jobs for ordinary people Peter. Labour are very much for small business. He Noble Lordship Mr Mandleson, a left wing Labour man, is all in favour of that, indeed I seem to remember him proposing that sort of thing himself.

    The Scottish National Party would look pretty lame if it wasn’t pushing for a separatist agenda now, wouldn’t it Peter? Of course we are trying to do something with it. On the other hand Labour handed out millions of our money to knights and peers on the Calman commission for it all to disappear in a puff of smoke when the those and such as those refused to come up with what Gordon Brown had demanded they come up with.

    PFI.... Don’t make me laugh. Who gains from PFI? Big Business, that’s who. What a stupid argument.

    As to your last point. You want nuclear weapons on the Clyde? That is Labour’s answer to unemployment? Why don’t we just employ everyone making and maintaining WMDs. Then we can complete the absolute two facedness of telling the rest of the world that the UK should be allowed to have them, but other countries can’t. Did it ever occur to Labour that there were better ways of solving the unemployment problem? No of course it didn’t. As it goes, there would probably be very few jobs lost in the removal of these weapons, and they could easily be made up and more in other employment. These things cost the earth, and very little of it is for ordinary men’s wages.

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  15. Peter

    Imagine if the hundreds of billions spent on nukes had been spent on creating useful things. Like better housing and infrastructure or investing in high tech engineering. Wouldn't that be more useful and have created more jobs ?
    Instead we have WMD's and rotting hulks in our waters.

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  16. Peter

    I strongly support the cut in business rates. For all the reasons that Tris pointed out, it is a practial solution to keep small to medium sized business recruting employees. Most notibly my lot, students who depend on the money to keep themselves in further education.

    I believe in enabling business to stay open, and employing. I take it you do not Peter? Want to squeeze till the pips sqeak? Then what jobs would be left?

    You are incredible.

    And as for your opposition to a plebicite on independence, your talking nonsense. I say let us have this referendum, I shall campaign for the Union, let the SNP make their case for independence. A clean, fair campaign.
    What better way is there in empowering the working man in the future of his nation Peter?

    If anyone is guilty of scoffing here Peter, I think you will find that it is you- using 'seperatist' is hardly suitable.

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  17. Anon: Spot on....

    Dean: I agree that we should hae the referendum. But one thing interests me. Would Goldie campaign along side Gray?

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  18. Goldie would campaign to preserve the Union.

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  19. But Dean, would that mean joining forces with Mr Gray?

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