Agreed. The rot set in long before Blair. They were unelectable in England, so had to go to the right, to chase votes in the home counties. In a way, admitting they don't care about Scotland or need Scots votes.
That's the reason. Mandelson said so in this autobiography. (Not that they didn't care about Scots, Northerners or Welsh, but that getting the middle class vote in the prosperous south was the job.)
I've always believed that independence will come when the Scottish people have their eyes opened to the reality of the Labour Party in Scotland. This seems to be happening now.
If the people lose faith in Labour, I guess you could ask, what is the point of the UK for Scotland. It's becomes just an expensive way for us to pay for some tubes playing at being self important, whilst actually being the play thing of the United States.
Jim Murphy has been elected the new leader of the Scottish Labour party, pledging to make Scotland “the fairest nation on the planet” and insisting that he will not lose a single seat to the SNP in May’s general election.
he will not lose a single seat to the SNP in May’s general election.
The only thing Spud will hammer is his party's support. He comes across as a warmongering, expenses abusing, trident loving, egomaniac. I don't think those on the left will, be too happy.
He's only 10 years younger that Jola and his assistant is actually older than the previous assistant.
How insulting... and all because Jola didn't vote for him.
If the idea was to get some young blood in, there wasn't much of a choice. Jim is middle aged!
As for Scotland being the fairest country in the world...well. The mind boggles.
I'd like to ask Jim what he intends to do about the fact that the minimum wage is several pounds an hour beneath that which anyone could possibly live a decent life on. How does he intend to deal with that?> Oh, he can't . It's not within his remit.
How about the fact that the retirement pension is the second lowest by proportion to the average wage in the developed world, beaten to the bottom place by Mexico? Oh wait. Nothing. Because it is sod all to do with him.
How does he square being fair with the fact that he voted for tuition fees in England. Presumably he doesn't expect us to believe that he thinks it is right for English kids to pay for their degrees, when Scots don't.
Does he think that everyone should get 9 years of Tertiary education free?
How does he feel about letting out property... Oh he's in favour of that. He does it with the taxpayer funded apartment in London.
Does his idea of fairness include bombing Baghdad and indiscriminately killing thousands, nay tens of thousands of Iraqis, on the basis of a dodgy dossier which, at least the FCO knew was a pack of lies?
Does his idea of fairness include the current and ongoing treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis, in their own country?
And many more...
I think it is rash to say that no one single seat will transfer to the SNP in the next election.
I don't go along with what the polls show... ire 45-50 SNP seats next time round (some even more). That's most unlikely to happen.
However, he's setting himself up to fail from the start. You can;'t have on-going polling like we are getting and expect that there will be no change. To assume that is insulting to the people.
Still... it will be interesting to see him work his "charm" and his good looks on the people of Glasgow. It promises to be interesting.
I thought that the rot set in after Callaghan (although I realise that he was a bit useless as a PM, and was totally in thrall to the US president. According to Tony Benn's diaries, he couldnt stop talking about his visit, and how he and "Gerald" had been on first name terms).
But I'd say it was gradual. They were daft to appoint Foote; Kinnock was an unmitigated disaster, and as far as I can see the death of John Smith was a disaster for them.
Blair, Mandelson and Brown really brought about their downfall... but perhaps their biggest problem was Margaret Hilda Thatcher for pushing the whole of England, and possibly Britain to the right and making open greed a virtue. It goes without saying that the current leader is a complete disaster.
In Scotland they started off not too badly with Dewar who at least had some vision. It went downhill with leaders after that being more or less worse than the previous one. Iain Gray, Jola and now this muppet.
However, I'm not a student of these things... and I don't remember much of them. What is your take? You've clearly suffered under their incompetence.
I used to think Callaghan was alright I was wrong...Tony Benn who i admired used a tax avoidance scheme to avoid paying due taxes to the UK(perhaps as he was very elderly his family made the arrangement is what i like to believe ) .
Thatcher pushed nobody people voted for her knowing what she intended to do others did not and as time went by more were crushed by her policies. and she fell out of favour. New Labour rightly judged (Im not saying the policies were right ) they could be a more gentle ? Tory lite party and get the voters to elect them again they were electorally on the button. Unfortunately capitalism done what it always it alway always does and collapsed taking New Labor with them. and now Labour has to decide what they are for other than being elected..The way things seem to me thus far Tory lite is still the path many Labour elected representatives see as the way to go.
I thought that people were desperate for a change after Sunny Jim's winter of discontent, and that Thatcher appealed with her "common sense housewife...Mr Micawber" approach.
I don't think anyone had the slightest idea that the wicked cow would privatise half the country's assets and make greedy "loadsamoney" people respectable...
I also doubt for a moment that anyone thought she would use prime ministerial residences for the benefits of paedophiles or that she would allow lies to be told about football fans to save her lovely corrupt police.
No one could have imagined that that woman would order sinking a ship sailing away from conflict and full of young men.
A creature beneath contempt.
I'm sorry to hear about Tony Benn though. He was a hero of mine, even if he havered nonsense about how his mother would have been a foreigner if Scotland had been independent. His bloody wife was a foreigner. It didn't do his kids any harm. Foreigners aren't necessarily BAD. I thought he'd have known that!
I'm thinking that possibly it was because he was old (and ill... he had prostate cancer) and his family don't have his principles, that his tax affairs were fiddled.
I hope that the International court go for Straw and Blair, but of course i know they won't. Obama won't allow it. He'd have to let them take Bush and Cheney, and hopefully Karl Rove... if he did, and that is less likely than me being at #1 in the charts this time next week.
I'd like to see the repulsive Straw banged up for the rest of his years... and imagine Blair having made all that money and having to live in a prison cell. What joy.
But they will go free. If anyone pays for all the torture and killing, it will be some junior, somewhere.
Sorry, Niko, old chum, but I do not see anything 'lite' in a party that followed their leader and voted for the carnage inflicted on Iraq and Afghanistan. They did so knowling full well that the dossier was doctored and the imminent threat a lie. The two countries are now infinitely more dangerous than they were under the most brutal of regimes. Most of those who supported Blair and Brown are still around and are still influential. If the UK media showed the true picture of the harsh reality in these two countries they would never vote for Labour again.
In truth, if we knew all the things that were done in our name over the years, decades, centuries, we'd all elect to become Norwegian.
Tory and Labour... and Liberal alike. They have been corrupt forever.
I despair of what the West has done to the middle east, with its messing and plastering in a place it understands less than I understand quantum physics.
The capacity for British politicians to stick their stupid toffee noses in others' business, while their own country slips towards bankruptcy knows no bounds.
My feelings on Murphy are not a secret. He is an expenses cheat, a liar, a warmonger, a total plank. Labour deserve him and all that is coming their way.
What happened to Labour? People sussed them for the fakes they are. Party of the working class? Haven't been for decades.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
DeleteThe rot set in long before Blair. They were unelectable in England, so had to go to the right, to chase votes in the home counties. In a way, admitting they don't care about Scotland or need Scots votes.
jimnarlene
That's the reason. Mandelson said so in this autobiography. (Not that they didn't care about Scots, Northerners or Welsh, but that getting the middle class vote in the prosperous south was the job.)
DeleteI've always believed that independence will come when the Scottish people have their eyes opened to the reality of the Labour Party in Scotland.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be happening now.
If the people lose faith in Labour, I guess you could ask, what is the point of the UK for Scotland. It's becomes just an expensive way for us to pay for some tubes playing at being self important, whilst actually being the play thing of the United States.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/14/snp-scottish-labour-murphy-poll
ReplyDeleteJim Murphy has been elected the new leader of the Scottish Labour party, pledging to make Scotland “the fairest nation on the planet” and insisting that he will not lose a single seat to the SNP in May’s general election.
he will not lose a single seat to the SNP in May’s general election.
three cheers to our Jimbo !!! Hammer of the snp
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSj7PPvxLiJyEYGz-HL-MzaZ6qSrLod9vcbgIq7YcLBbRwTe_ww
Huzzah ! Huzzah ! Huzzah !
The only thing Spud will hammer is his party's support. He comes across as a warmongering, expenses abusing, trident loving, egomaniac. I don't think those on the left will, be too happy.
Deletejimnarlene
A new generation?
DeleteHe's only 10 years younger that Jola and his assistant is actually older than the previous assistant.
How insulting... and all because Jola didn't vote for him.
If the idea was to get some young blood in, there wasn't much of a choice. Jim is middle aged!
As for Scotland being the fairest country in the world...well. The mind boggles.
I'd like to ask Jim what he intends to do about the fact that the minimum wage is several pounds an hour beneath that which anyone could possibly live a decent life on. How does he intend to deal with that?> Oh, he can't . It's not within his remit.
How about the fact that the retirement pension is the second lowest by proportion to the average wage in the developed world, beaten to the bottom place by Mexico? Oh wait. Nothing. Because it is sod all to do with him.
How does he square being fair with the fact that he voted for tuition fees in England. Presumably he doesn't expect us to believe that he thinks it is right for English kids to pay for their degrees, when Scots don't.
Does he think that everyone should get 9 years of Tertiary education free?
How does he feel about letting out property... Oh he's in favour of that. He does it with the taxpayer funded apartment in London.
Does his idea of fairness include bombing Baghdad and indiscriminately killing thousands, nay tens of thousands of Iraqis, on the basis of a dodgy dossier which, at least the FCO knew was a pack of lies?
Does his idea of fairness include the current and ongoing treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis, in their own country?
And many more...
I think it is rash to say that no one single seat will transfer to the SNP in the next election.
I don't go along with what the polls show... ire 45-50 SNP seats next time round (some even more). That's most unlikely to happen.
However, he's setting himself up to fail from the start. You can;'t have on-going polling like we are getting and expect that there will be no change. To assume that is insulting to the people.
Still... it will be interesting to see him work his "charm"
and his good looks on the people of Glasgow. It promises to be interesting.
I note he's already lost a few prominent people.
tris
ReplyDeleteConan said in answer to that question-Tony f'ckinh blair
Using a pic of Jim Callaghan as a emblem of Old Labour to
contrast with new Labour just reveals a lack of real knowledge
of the labour party.
Juteman
there will always and forever be a LOYAL majority voting against
Independence FOREVER.AND EVER
you lot are just once again trying to put the moon in a basket
give up yer starting to look really really silly now
"you lot are just once again trying to put the moon in a basket
Deletegive up yer starting to look really really silly now"
Pot to kettle.
jimnarlene
Why does it, Niko?
DeleteI thought that the rot set in after Callaghan (although I realise that he was a bit useless as a PM, and was totally in thrall to the US president. According to Tony Benn's diaries, he couldnt stop talking about his visit, and how he and "Gerald" had been on first name terms).
But I'd say it was gradual. They were daft to appoint Foote; Kinnock was an unmitigated disaster, and as far as I can see the death of John Smith was a disaster for them.
Blair, Mandelson and Brown really brought about their downfall... but perhaps their biggest problem was Margaret Hilda Thatcher for pushing the whole of England, and possibly Britain to the right and making open greed a virtue. It goes without saying that the current leader is a complete disaster.
In Scotland they started off not too badly with Dewar who at least had some vision. It went downhill with leaders after that being more or less worse than the previous one. Iain Gray, Jola and now this muppet.
However, I'm not a student of these things... and I don't remember much of them. What is your take? You've clearly suffered under their incompetence.
tris
ReplyDeleteI used to think Callaghan was alright I was wrong...Tony Benn who i admired
used a tax avoidance scheme to avoid paying due taxes to the UK(perhaps as he was very elderly his family made the arrangement is what i like to believe ) .
Thatcher pushed nobody people voted for her knowing what she intended to do
others did not and as time went by more were crushed by her policies.
and she fell out of favour. New Labour rightly judged (Im not saying the policies were right ) they could be a more gentle ? Tory lite party and get the voters to elect them
again they were electorally on the button.
Unfortunately capitalism done what it always it alway always does and collapsed
taking New Labor with them. and now Labour has to decide what they are for other than being elected..The way things seem to me thus far Tory lite is still the path many
Labour elected representatives see as the way to go.
Who would trust Labour to tie shoelaces anymore?
DeleteI thought that people were desperate for a change after Sunny Jim's winter of discontent, and that Thatcher appealed with her "common sense housewife...Mr Micawber" approach.
DeleteI don't think anyone had the slightest idea that the wicked cow would privatise half the country's assets and make greedy "loadsamoney" people respectable...
I also doubt for a moment that anyone thought she would use prime ministerial residences for the benefits of paedophiles or that she would allow lies to be told about football fans to save her lovely corrupt police.
No one could have imagined that that woman would order sinking a ship sailing away from conflict and full of young men.
A creature beneath contempt.
I'm sorry to hear about Tony Benn though. He was a hero of mine, even if he havered nonsense about how his mother would have been a foreigner if Scotland had been independent. His bloody wife was a foreigner. It didn't do his kids any harm. Foreigners aren't necessarily BAD. I thought he'd have known that!
I'm thinking that possibly it was because he was old (and ill... he had prostate cancer) and his family don't have his principles, that his tax affairs were fiddled.
I hope that the International court go for Straw and Blair, but of course i know they won't. Obama won't allow it. He'd have to let them take Bush and Cheney, and hopefully Karl Rove... if he did, and that is less likely than me being at #1 in the charts this time next week.
I'd like to see the repulsive Straw banged up for the rest of his years... and imagine Blair having made all that money and having to live in a prison cell. What joy.
But they will go free. If anyone pays for all the torture and killing, it will be some junior, somewhere.
No wonder the terrorists hate us.
Sorry, Niko, old chum, but I do not see anything 'lite' in a party that followed their leader and voted for the carnage inflicted on Iraq and Afghanistan. They did so knowling full well that the dossier was doctored and the imminent threat a lie. The two countries are now infinitely more dangerous than they were under the most brutal of regimes. Most of those who supported Blair and Brown are still around and are still influential. If the UK media showed the true picture of the harsh reality in these two countries they would never vote for Labour again.
ReplyDeleteIn truth, if we knew all the things that were done in our name over the years, decades, centuries, we'd all elect to become Norwegian.
DeleteTory and Labour... and Liberal alike. They have been corrupt forever.
I despair of what the West has done to the middle east, with its messing and plastering in a place it understands less than I understand quantum physics.
The capacity for British politicians to stick their stupid toffee noses in others' business, while their own country slips towards bankruptcy knows no bounds.
Tris
ReplyDeleteMy feelings on Murphy are not a secret. He is an expenses cheat, a liar, a warmonger, a total plank. Labour deserve him and all that is coming their way.
Bruce
I look forward to enjoying that Bruce. If i can't see Blair and Straw taken away in chains, then at least I can watch Murphy fall flat on his face.
DeleteSmall consolation.