BS: Tory leadership

Subject: Tory leadership
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 06:31 PM

The man of the night? Surely not?

Subject: RE: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 06:53 PM

Next leader: I ain't Duncan-Smith.

Their problem is that the person best equipped to lead the Tory Party is already leading the Labour Party.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 02:22 AM

Tory leadership = oxymoron.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 02:36 AM

B.S.---SURELY? I suppose we COULD write a song about it------

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: GUEST,Tory's Yuk !!!!!
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 03:14 AM

John Prescott would bring some punch to the job.Since he socked that farmer he has time on his hands ha ha.

TY..

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: harvey andrews
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 06:07 AM

The man of the night will lead us
Back to the cold dark cell
Where the mad eyed maid is waiting
To put us in chains as well.
Remember the snail so slimy
In the cabinet of the fools?
At the thought of returning backwards
The man of the night, he drools.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 06:49 AM

The Tory party is so full of BS it is definitely where this thread should be! But as McGratgh says with a Tory in charge of the Labour party what difference will it make?

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:17 AM

sorry guys comparing Tony to Michael is way out of order, the passing of time dulls the ache and hatred of Toryism -have to dig out my Les Barker -brilliant poem to the tune of Strangers in the night about Mr Howard called Something of the Night. What will anne Widdecombe do now?

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Willie-O
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:32 AM

Interesting when a decade--less, actually, isn't it?--has passed since the Tories were your invincible masters...now from my perspective in Canada, I have no idea who any of those people you're talking about are.

Same thing happened to our Canadian Tories, since they got dethroned in '93--reduced from a majority government to TWO seats. They have just decided to fold their current tent and shack up with the even more right-wing Canadian Alliance, under the banner of the Conservative Party of Canada--dropping the "Progressive" prefix. This will set them up, it seems, as the perpetual grumpy rightwing opposition, and they certainly lack any prospects for a charismatic or even impressively competent leader. Sound familiar at all?

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Arnie
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:20 AM

Michael Howard is the MP for the constituency next to where I live and that is too close for comfort. He was a disaster as Home Sec - I worked in the Home Office and remember his disastrous time in office all too well. I suppose the only comforting thought is that the Tories are only re-arrranging the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic. Labour may not be perfect but they will trounce the Tories again at the next election. The Tories had 18yrs of power and look what they did for Britain in that time - remember Harry Enfield's 'Loadsamoney' - he was definitely a child of Maggie's time. Remember when Kent used to have coalfields, providing employment and pride for many village communities? Selling off the nation's jewels in the guise of privatisation merely created lucrative directorships for the Tories and their pals to take up once they were booted out of office. Only now are Labour taking steps to get the Great Railway Disaster sorted out by taking direct control of the tracks. The Tories cost this country an absolute fortune simply to hammer the unions and feather their own nests. There, now I've got that off my chest!

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:25 AM

Perfectly summed up by Harvey Andrews.
Could that "mad-eyed maid" be Ann Widdicombe alias Doris Karloff, I seen her on TV yesterday and she must have had finger pointing lessons from Alistair Campbell. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: John Routledge
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:45 AM

Wrong lady Ard :0)

Anne Widdicombe has at least a measure of humanity somewhat lacking in the the other lady.

Wonderful summary Harvey.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: The Barden of England
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:50 AM

Anne Widdicombe is my MP in Maidstone so when old Doris had a go at her fellow Kent MP I laughed - she knows something we don't maybe. I have a mug at home bought for me during Maggie's time in office when I went through 5 redundancies which say's "I'm having one of those decades". Do I want them back - NEVER! Tonie's cronies may be a lying, coniving bunch of b***ards but Tories they ain't. The trouble we have with the railways, the hospitals, the police and the whole damn things goes back to underinvestment during 18 years of Tory rule. All the money went to those with money with the tax breaks etc. and is what our friends in America are going through now with 'dubya'.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:52 AM

A vampire as leader is very appropriate for the party of the un-dead.

Jabberwocky..."

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: VIN
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 10:02 AM

Yes may they never return!!. I always thought of this chorus when 'she who shall not be named' was in power.

You tyrants of England, your race may soon be run,
You may be brought unto account for what you've sorely done.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 10:15 AM

The voting method for the new leader is supposedly 'democratic' in that the ordinary party member votes. So the attempt to make it a choice of one is about as cynical as you can get. Matthew Parris (ex Tory MP, now journalist for the Times) said, on Newsnight, BBC2 last night "I don't worry about the grass roots: they will do as they are told."

I am not member of the Tory party, but I would be heartily offended by that attitude if I were.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: GUEST,Tory's Yuk !!!!!
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 10:53 AM

Micheal Howerd prince of darkness.
that man is just so leary.
So wierd.So spooky
It looks like he has possesed the soul of Anne Widdecombe

Blimey this is turning into some sort of cockeyed poem.

Politicians you soulless bunch of shites.

Who would vote for any of the toe rags.

I certainly wont be any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 11:08 AM

But it's too late - he's unopposed.... guess who the next leader of the Tory Party is going to be....


All Hallows' Eve is the right time of year for that announcement.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 11:15 AM

Steve Bell's cartoon comment on this says it all - "The Dream Ticket"

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 11:54 AM

Dammn ! All that work on the internet by myself and other party hacks in the past week, trying to boost the impresion that IDS was GOD to the Tory Grass roots - WASTED !!!!!!

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 12:41 PM

Here's a current thread that seems appropriate in the circunstances - vampires real or not

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: fantum
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 01:15 PM

All the posts above may be right but it was the labour party who introduced PEL. They may yet prove more damaging to English folk culture than the first world war.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 01:49 PM

With all due respect, fantum, you're talking utter crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 02:11 PM

I suppose Portillo is intending to keep his powder dry until after this one is chucked out when they lose the next election.

What's frightening though is to remember the old saying about how "Oppositions don't win elections, Governments lose them". Tony Blair seems to be doing his level best to put people off voting Labour. They won't vote Tory, but they could well stay home. It's genuinely scarey...

Time to start talking about "stakeholding" once again, Tony! Only mean it this time.

I'm glad to hear that the BBC is planning to bring back Dr Who. We could be needing his help.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 02:22 PM

And now - a competition

Warning !!! - This is for those with a strong stomach only

This is the Website of the "Tory Grass roots" support IDS movement.
"Click 'Ere"

Some of us have had good fun in the few days that it was running, posting messages of support. - The ground rules were simple - You could not claim to be a member/supporter of the Tory Party, or impersonate one, after all we were trying to keep this honest.

Multiple postings counted, (after all if they were incapable of spotting it)

If you have a strong enough stomach browse through the pages and see how many false messages you can spot.

Sorry I did not want to open the postings to all Catters as the manipulation might have leaked !!

Gareth - Grinning like a cheshire cat !

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 03:25 PM

McG, it's wishful to think Blair is better in any sense than Howard. Howard will wipe the floor with him at PMQs, though I realise it won't do him any good. Even Hague did that, but politics has become a minority interest and people are past caring.

My guess is that the Tories will be massively rejuventated by this bloodless coup. I hope so, because it's time someone - anyone - put a bomb under New Labour and made politics entertaining again.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 04:15 PM

Those who point to the right-wing politics of Blair [and co.]are staring at the obvious. The problem is that love is blind---and for many the simple label "labour' is enough to blind them to reality.They should contemplate the word "new", and consider just what that weasel word meant, and what it still means. I think the almost complete lack of eldritch screeching from the nameless witch's domain over the past years should tell the naive millions SOMETHING! The lady is quite simply signalling her tacit approval of Tony and his machinations. It is a sad fact, and historically proven, that if a society enters a spell of prosperity which affects [even though unequally] the perceived wellbeing of every layer of that society, then right wing views begin to prevail. It is perfectly true to say that we're all human, and will try to perpetuate that which seems to have been of benefit to ourselves as individuals. Blair and co. came to power on the rising crest of a Global wave of economic prosperity. The weird--but all too common--- result was that the claims they made for credit were too easily believable. Now , things have got to some degree out of hand [rising unemployment, war, disguised public service cuts, etc., ]and Tony's mob are losing much of their charisma.
As has been--again--historically always the case, left-wing political views are emerging to restore some balance to the seesaw. What we can hope for is that right-wing policies be drastically modified before the only "cure" is assumed to be the policies of the extreme left. It has happened before in the UK. It is happening NOW in Colombia, Zimbabwe, and increasingly in Russia. It would be nice if we could have a level seesaw!

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: alanabit
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 04:21 PM

I am not so fussed about it being entertaining Fionn. I just do not want to see another Conservative government. I certainly do not want to see a government more conservative than the one Britain has at the moment. I have long held the opinion that some of the countries with the dullest politics maintain the highest living standards. I mean countries like Switzerland and Sweden. You can very rarely choose something you really like at an election. It usually comes down to picking the lesser of two evils. I think that is what the current government is.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 04:36 PM

As Boab says - in 1979 the UK went down that road, and the result was not pleasent. It took years of effort by Neil Kinnock, an underated leader if ever there was, to restore some sanity to the Labour Party.

Yes there are somethings I don't like about Tony's Government, but when you compare this with the alternative you will understand why I am an actavist - And no I'am not one to flog my concience around the meeting halls trying to get myself into Parliament.

And when I look at what has been achieved, unspectacular, but constant improvements in the UK's standard ogf living then I take umbrage at those, who with thier constant sneers, threaten this.

And as the McGrath will vouch, since he accidently found himself included in an E-Mail distribution list. New Labour and T Blair are not pushed very hard in South Wales.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 05:11 PM

I don't give a sod whether Blair is worse than Howard or the other way round. I care a lot that we will never again have a government like that of Margaret Thatcher in my lifetime.

When this Government does get kicked out, I want it to be replaced by something that is broadly more to the left of it. There's just not enough room to the right, without falling into the kind of sick extremist nonsense that's on display across the Atlantic. There's masses of room. There've been Tory Governments that were to the left of this one. Europe's currently got a few you could describe in those terms.

Maybe, once they've been taken to the cleaners a few more times, the Tory Party will reposition itself so that it is back in that part of the political spectrum.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 05:56 PM

McG, you've got a government like Thatcher's , or didn't you notice? I'd have thought Blair's pre ('97) election tryst with Murdoch to get the Sun on board, and making Thatcher his first guest at No 10, were pretty strong signals by any reckoning.

Sticking to the Tory spending program (which the outgoing chancellor Ken Clark admitted even the the Tories would not have done); presiding over an ever-widening gap between rich and poor (the corollary of which is spectacular growth in the prison population - and how wasteful is that?), and the insistance on regressive taxation (ie taxing spending rather than income) are surely conclusive.

Blair has sussed that if he keeps 35-40 per cent of the voting public feeling good, he's safe, and sod the rest. The man has not an ounce of social conscience in him. My guess is that he chose Labour, and stuck with it through the SDP fracture, for much the same reason Hitler chose the National Socialists. The party machine was in a state of collapse. Membership records were in such chaos that a crook like Maxwell could blithely lie that he'd been a member for years, and thereby become a Labour MP. Labour was wide open to manipulation by anyone of self-serving bent, and Blair exploited that weakness to the hilt.

alanabit, regardless of whether you like your politics to be entertaining, democracy would be better served if politics reached just a few of the millions who have given up playing any part in it.
People can hardly be blamed for scorning their entitlement to vote when the only issue is which party would make better managers of our conservative, unmixed, divisive economy.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 06:05 PM

McGrath...It seems to me that we are now all part of an economic system in terminal decline,and I think politician of all persuasions are only too well aware of it. Terms like "left" "right" "tory" "labour", have become meaningless as the politicians struggle to retain some shred of credibility in the ever deepening morass that is UK politics today. The only people who sincerely believe in a political solution are the utopian socialists,Tommy Sheridan et all, who provide a sad and deluded spectacle.
The antics of the Tories over the last few days,should have made it clear to everybody, just how cynical these people really are. Of course, the public will be fooled once again into believing that it matters who resides in 10 Downing St,and we shall stagger on to the inevitable end. I suppose were all sheep, and sheep end up at the butchers...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: alanabit
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 06:32 PM

I would say it is a government to the left of Thatcher and well to the right of Ted Heath's. It may be pretty galling for a socialist, Fionn, but I really can imagine things being a lot worse. A lot of the civil rights which have been lost (protection from security service abuse, the right not to register your address etc) may well have gone forever, but I really shudder to think what further rights will go when the next Tory government takes power.
   I should not really be in this debate, as I don't live in your country any more. However, if I was, I would see the best prospect of change as that of entering the Labour Party and trying to change that from the inside. It can be done. It is not so long ago that the prospect of another Labour government looked most unlikely.
   The only other realistic alternative to the current regime is a very right wing Tory government. A lot of people who want to pull the plug on this lot are the same ones who deserted Jim Callaghan in 1979. Look where that got us!

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 06:57 PM

Labour was wide open to manipulation by anyone of self-serving bent, and Blair exploited that weakness to the hilt.

Self confession - Fionn ????

Oh by the way, as you "alledge" that you were a former party official in Buckingham - What role did you have in the Robert Maxwell selection ??

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: harvey andrews
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:02 PM

Two major banks have recently sacked British workforces and moved the jobs to India. What can any govt do against this? Surely politics is now a sideshow and business rules the world. It's business we should be attacking. How is it that in Canada a coffee costs 60p and a tea 45p, profits are made and workers are paid from this. Yet in a Brit motorway service station it's £1.99 and £1.50? Our battle now should be against these ridiculous profits and these companies that are running our lives. The whole Tory mess is such a ridiculously overblown and meaningless charade. Fat cats are 70% better off in two years while the workforce struggles on the basic wage. What party is going to do anything about such inequality?

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:10 PM

Harvey - Don't ever accuse 'Motorway' service staff of being overpaid. Minimum wage job !! - Starbucks F**k's.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:19 PM

As a footnote to my last post ,Ihave just heard that Dianne Abbott,the "left wing ""MP has enrolled her son in a £10000 per year Public School.This breathtaking piece of cynicism,illustrates how meaningless the "tory" "Socialist" tags are.The rats know the ship is sinking,but they have no intention of going down with it...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: harvey andrews
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:25 PM

Gareth, sorry I was inarticulate...I meant the fat cats were the bosses, in this case Days Hotels services and the underpaid workforce were serving me the £1.50 teabag in hot water.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:51 PM

"a government to the left of Thatcher and well to the right of Ted Heath's" Exactly.

The difference that still exists between the Tory and Labour Party is that the membership of the Tory party out in the country tend actually to be further to the right, and more authoritarian than the people who control the party machine; and in the case of Labour it's the other way round - the people who control the party machine are further to the right and more authoritarian than the membership.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 08:43 PM

Harvey - No appology from you was neccessary. I have no illusions.

Kevin - Please don't accuse me of being to the left of Tony Blair, or less authoritarian then St Annes Gate.

I would not have expelled George Galloway, I would have handed him over to the people of Iraq. He would have got a suspended sentance, if he was lucky by the neck.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:04 PM

Would I do that Gareth? Even if I thought it was probably true? (Hell, Michael Portillo is probably to the left of Tony Blair.)

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: alanabit
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 05:24 AM

Now Kevin. I think you are overstating your case there. Never forget the pleasure it gave us all to watch him losing his seat in 1997!

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: ard mhacha
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 06:22 AM

I have to agree with Fionn, Blair won`t be looking forward to debating with Howard, as you say Hague wiped the floor with Tony.
Blair come across as bitchy momma`s boy, all smarmy smiles and as about as sincere as an Insurance Agent. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Grab
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 08:23 AM

Question: why do we care? It's not like anyone's going to vote for them, whoever they have as leader. I suppose if they got Arnie as leader then maybe that'd do it, but I can't see anything less working. The Tories are as unelectable now as Labour were in the 80s. The Lib Dems are the only realistic opposition party these days.

Graham.

PS. Harvey, it's the "captive market" syndrome - for a more realistic comparison, check against the price of a coffee in McD's at a rest stop. And if you're not fool enough to buy it, then the price goes down.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Cllr
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 09:26 AM

I thinks its great we have Michael Howard, roll on the next election. Cllr

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 11:18 AM

Sorry, Gareth - don't remember ever alleging (or "alledging") that I was a party official in Buckingham. If I did, I was wrong: I was not.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 02:14 PM

I think it's great you've got him too, Cllr...

So what if Howard does walk all over Tony Blair in Parliamentary Question Time? That doesn't really matter a sausage.

What matters is that he's likely to give a lot of people nightmares that could push them into going out and voting to stop him. With luck, particularly in his own constituency, where he's got a vulnerable majority - if Labour voters had voted tactically last time he'd have been out. This time, with a lot of Labour voters feeling generally pretty pissed off with the Government anyway, the chances of Howard going down under the Lib Dem should be a lot stronger.

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: DMcG
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 02:25 PM

As a matter of interest, what is the position if the leader of the party doesn't win his seat?


Cllr - have you a view on Matthew Parris' admittedly off-the-cuff remark about giving the ordinary members no choice of who is leader? (see above if need be.)

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: Gareth
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 03:30 PM

DMcG

Happened once, to Ramsey MacDonald at Seaham Harbour, nr Durham in 1936 - Manny Shinwell put him out. Ramsey Mac was technically leader of National Labour at that time.

He was found a nice safe Conservative seat at a bye election shortly after, but was a broken man and died within a couple of years.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Tory leadership
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 04:00 PM

Mind you safe seats can come unstuck in such circumstances. It's happened several times that Ministers who have lost their seats have been put up as many as two more times in "safe" seats and been beaten. Voters tend not to like that kind of thing - voting for a candidate and having him or her promptly resign. They don't like being taken for granted

I think in the aftermath of an election in which his partyu had won, and he personally had been guven the boot, the chances of Howard being defeated yet again in a "safe seat" would probably be pretty strong...

In which case they could always try sticking him in the House of Lords - the technical position is that the Prime Minister is whoever is called along to curtsy to the Queen, in the expectation that they can form a Government which can get things passed in the House of Commons. They don't have to be in the Commons. I'm not even certain they have to be in Parliament at all, at least in theory...

Perhaps they could call him Lord Protector or something.