Tories overtake Labour in poll

[FlashHarry]

Reuters story here

It's too short to snip. I wonder if Blair's government is going down?

[Noordam]

1. It is Britain not BFEE America

so my guess is Labor will be helping Blair out.

IMHO --- Blair will be toast before Thanksgiven (US lol to pick a date).

[Spazito]

2. Geez, if labour has any hope...

they need to remove Blair now and get another leader in before it is too late.

[AP]

12. Yes, that will be the next mantra. Stage two. Get rid of Blair and all wil

be fine.

Blair is being brought down by the same intruments of fascism that defeated Gore, are trying to take down Chavez, and just put Arnold in place.

Let's hope Blair stands up to them. Let's keep a tally. I think the last LA senator's race, Sweden PM race, German PM election are places where fascism lost. I think Venezuela is a toss-up right now.

Let's hope Blair ends up in the winner's column.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

41. Blair is a right wing plant...

I've lived through this in New Zealand. The sooner Labour wakes up to the right wing plants in their midst, the sooner they will be able to recover from the damage Blair has done.

Blair is a plant, there is aboslutely NO DOUBT about it. All this "New Labour" and "Third Way" shit was done here, and when we finally got rid of them, they went out and started their own ultra-right wing party and a few of them advised other nations on how to do the same thing through the World Bank/IMF and the WTO.

Trust me, you better hope Blair goes down before he takes all of Labour with him. In New Zealand, Labour didn't wake up until it was voted out and the SAME POLICIES were continued by the National party, which caused the people of New Zealand to demand a change of the electoral system so that the stranglehold of the major parties would be broken.

It took a DECADE for Labour to recover after that.

Your support of Blair is more likely to bring about the thing you fear (facism) than getting rid of him now. If Blair is really innocent, then he would see what he is doing to Labour and would resign for the good of the party. The fact that he refuses to, shows that he WANTS Labour to fall.

The way these crypto-rigtists work is to take control of Labour or destroy it, the end result will be the same. The ONLY way to prevent this is to get rid of them before it is too late.

[suegeo]

55. Gammel, Bush, Blair

The chimp is a good "friend" of some Scottish, BIG OIL guy named Gammel. Gammel runs Cairn oil?

On one of his infrequent trips out of America, the chimp visited Scotland for Gammel's marriage, back in the 80s.

The relationshihp goes back to Bush Sr. and Gammel Sr. I forget how that evil link was forged. Maybe I'll go back, look it up, and post it here later.

Anyway, Gammel Jr. and Tony Blair went to the same college together, and they were there at school at about the same time. The articles I read hint that they were in the same dorm together, or something.

I would like to know how cozy the relationship between Gammel (big oil), the chimp (covered in oil) and Blair are.

ON EDIT:

SOURCES:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2000/12/18/wbush218.xml

Mutual friend who could bring together two world leaders

By Auslan Cramb, Scotland Correspondent
(Filed: 18/12/2000)

WHEN Tony Blair and George W Bush meet for the first time they will find they have a close friend in common, an oilman and former Scottish rugby player who has known both men since childhood.

Bill Gammell, 47, has emerged as a possible facilitator of the first meeting between them, and as a businessman with enviable access to Downing Street and the White House. He described his friendship with the two leaders as "a curious and extraordinary accident of fate". But he refused to comment yesterday on his potential role as a go-between, saying the subject was "a little delicate".

He said: "It is an accident of history that I was in the same house at school as Tony Blair, and that I also know George Bush. The two have not met. I really don't want to comment on whether I will be the one to facilitate that meeting."


------------------------------
AND

Gammell's connections with both men go back a long way: he played basketball with the young Blair and went cycling with the young Bush. After Gammell's father, Jimmy, backed George Bush Sr's oil business in the 50s, the budding US politician sent his 13-year-old son to spend a summer at the Gammell family farm in Glen Isla in Perthshire. Bill was six, and the two boys rode the country lanes on their bikes and struck up a friendship that has lasted to this day. The two men were in the oil business together in the 80s, by which time Bush Sr was vice-president. Bush was a guest at Gammell's wedding in 1983.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukreponse/comment/story/0,11443,679094,00.html


-------------------------------
AND (Note the CIA connection and business connections throughout this story)

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010718LittleBoCreep.html


"The sheep farm in Perthshire, Scotland, belonged to a James Gammell. 'Jimmy' was Scotland's most connected elitist financier, and an early partner in Zapata Oil. Zapata Oil, readers may know, is the early aggressive venture of George Herbert Walker Bush and his cronies, and reported to have had CIA involvement."

[GCP]

44. Blair went into Iraq against the wishes of the great majority

of his countrymen. 70% were against going in.

This has nothing to do with being set up by Bush et al.

Tony wanted to be in on the division of the spoils, Britain's North sea oil is almost tapped out. BP was probably pushing him to go into Iraq so that American oil companies didn't get all the goodies.

That's it, no conspiracy apart from oil interests.

The British people can work it out for themselves, and before you start with the BBC being in league with Bush etc, it doesn't wash, with all due respect.

[AP]

46. Blair tried to talk Bush out of invading Iraq until.

He was the one pushing the hardest for an alternative. Why did he decide to do BP's bidding only after there was no option because Bush decided to go in?

And, if Blair is such a friend of BP, why isn't he giving in to pressure to lower petrol taxes?

And why is the UK pushing for alternatives to oil?

[Eloriel]

51. BP is pretty big on alternatives to oil

Check it out.

Eloriel

[AP]

54. Eloriel, haven't you read Greg Pallast? You can't slap a new logo on your

gas stations and call that being big on alternatives to oil.

That was a marketing campaign. It wasn't reality.

In fact, I don't think BP is even all that British. Isn't most of its equity owned by Americans? (I'm not sure about this, though. I've seen things on both sides of this. Enlightenment welcomed.)

[Sagan]

3. so can someone enlighten me about the Tories?

If Blair goes down for cooperating with the Chimpministration over Iraq, what would the Tories do? What were their positions on the UK's involvment in Iraq?

[IndianaGreen]

5. Tories believe in privatization

their opposition to the war is based on the lies that Blair told, and the role that Blair played in outing David Kelley, resulting in his suicide.

Tories are conservative, but they are not social conservatives like the GOP.

Since Blair is also privatizing the health services, I see little difference between him and the Tories.

[AP]

13. Tories aren't social conservatives??? Their best hope at winning the last

general election was a bisexual, Michael Portillo, who the BBC propped up with a very nice little series he hosted. Tories wouldn't run him.

Tories are fascists and they're every bit as bad as Republicans.

You think Blair is bad 'cause he's building some private hospitals? Well at least he's doing it in a way that isn't a free for all give away of the public purse to the Tories. Wait 'til the Tories get in power. All the money built up in the middle class will be shifted right up to the wealthiest. Unemployment will increase, intereste rates will go up. It'll be hell for the middle class.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Portillo is quite good

and he is head and shoulders the other nitpicking opponents of Duncan Smith. Plus he is more handsome than Blair or Kennedy!

Portillo's father was a Spaniard that had escaped the Spanish civil war. His biography is quite interesting!

[AP]

27. You have just lowered my opinoin of you so much.

I can't believe you said that.

Do you know what the Tory Party stands for? People DIE because of their policies. They use the anti-immigrant card every election, and immigrants get knifed as a result. They underfund the hospitals so dramatically, people can't get treatement and THEY DIE. They sold off the railroads to companies who put profit before safety, and PEOPLE DIE. Tories care about one thing, and that's money, and they don't care who suffers as a result of their policies.

I am stunned that you lied about Tories not being social conservatives and now you're swooning over Portillo.

[IndianaGreen]

49. Blair is underfunding the hospitals too

and he wants to privatize the health services.

I was speaking of Portillo in terms of his charisma in relation to the likes of Duncan Smith. Portillo was the presenter in a couple of TV programmes. He missed his real calling in life!

If you want Labour, you must support the Liberal Democrats because they are closer to what Labour used to be than Blair and his Tory-light New Labour.

[AP]

52. Apparently you missed the poster who described how her mother needed

care and got it quickly which she didn't think would have happened 6 years ago.

Like I said, Blair has done 1 million things right and maybe four things wrong. I don't like the privitization of public services, but at least what's going on isn't a boondoggle transfer of wealth to Tory cronies (which is what would happen under the Tories) and it's actually conferring huge benefits to the people in terms of better health.

What Blair is probably doing -- and I'm only guessing -- is he's trying to develop the foundation hospitals, and engage in limited privatization so that it's all done and there's nothing left to do when the Tories inevitably take power again. If he did nothing, you know that the Tories would come into power and then just bleed the taxpayers dry to pay for a fully privatized health care system which delivered even less in term of services and health to the people than the NHS does.

Oh, and by the way, the NHS sucks. It kills people left and right. Blair is right to be doing things that make people healthier.

Do you know what you're talking about when you talk about Portillo or are you just doing an internet search. I was the one who told you he presented a TV show (and I spelled it 'programme' and I don't think it's spelled that way in Indiana). But thanks for the enthusiastic endorsement of his (uh, Hitler-like?) charisma.

And what do you think the Lib Dems stand for, by the way?

[GCP]

45. Portillo is universally despised by everybody I speak to over there

Please give me a break.

[Classical_Liberal]

23. The poll is misleading though, because it doesn't take into

account that most of Labors losses are going to Liberal Dems and not Tories. That being the case the next government will be a coalition of Liberal Dems and old Labor. Britain doesn't have a Presidency, an Electoral College or winner take all clauses like America. It is a parliamentary system, and look at it through the American lens is misleading.

[T_i_B]

57. Not social conservatives?

The tories are as social conservative as they come outside the BNP. Anti-gay, vehemently anti-immigrant, pro-military, xenophobic in general, view hanging and flogging as the solution to all crime problems etc. The only difference is that there isn't the abortion debate in Great Britain so we don't have the anti-abortion nutters in that much prominence yet.

Here's a great article about the tories, which mentions my old stomping ground of Sheffield Hallam and which show quite clearly how the tories are dying on their arse.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,805250,00.html

Three weeks ago, I set off in search of the nation's Tories - a group who, it seems to me, are increasingly invisible in all walks of life. I wanted to find out what made them tick, and how they kept going in this, their darkest hour. Many of those I approached were not at all keen to talk; they appeared to have a self-esteem problem. Even Boris Johnson, the publicity-hungry member for Henley, wouldn't take me on tour with him (he's a star on the rubber chicken circuit). 'I know your game,' he said. 'You're going to take the mickey out of my ladies.' When I replied that his supporters should be proud of their politics, he just harrumphed. Their planet is, however, a strange and nostalgic one - a land that time forgot, a world of brooches and regimental ties, of pork pies and potted meat (for anyone who can't remember, it tastes like old dishcloth). The good thing about this parallel universe is that it makes you feel amazingly young and groovy, even if, like me, you are in your thirties. The bad thing about it is that it is fading fast - and this has implications far beyond who organises the prizes at the next grand tombola. The opposition is, quite literally, dying on its feet.

After criss-crossing the country for several days, I conclude that things are very bleak indeed for the Tories. In 1975, party membership stood at 1.5m; that figure is now around 300,000, and I would be surprised if the average age is below 65. Everywhere I go, the grassroots fall into three camps: snowy-haired traditionalists (the majority); middle-aged traditionalists (a smaller group); and young modernisers (the smallest group). What all three have in common - and it makes their position very different from that of the Left in the Eighties - is their lack of a hate figure. It isn't just that they are too busy with their own problems to slag off Blair; lots of them are complimentary. 'He's rather nice,' says Marjorie Price, of the Finchley and Golders Green Conservatives. 'Very charismatic.'

The other thing that strikes you is how archaic many of their views remain - in spite of all the talk of change. One young female agent - she was 23 - tells me that she does not believe in benefits of any kind - full stop . In Stourbridge, meanwhile, some of the opinions I am offered - on the record - are just as eye-popping. Here is my friend Les, an approved parliamentary candidate, on the death penalty: 'In principle, I'm not against. I don't want to say I'd hang and flog them all. But I think there are classifications of people who should be put out of their misery.' And here he is on Section 28: 'I do have a problem with promulgating the idea that it's a normal lifestyle, because clearly it isn't. We wouldn't be here if we took that line.'

So: old age, depression, low self-esteem and, occasionally, barmy-sounding views. The twenty-first century Conservative Party. Assuming that we all believe that a fully functioning opposition is a good thing - even if we don't agree with every word its leader shouts across the dispatch box - what on earth is to be done? Unfortunately, I have no answers - and neither, really, do the wise men I consult when I get home.

[qwertyMike]

7. The Tories voted WITH Blair on Iraq

....saving him from being defeated by the rebels in his own party
:(

[AP]

14. Almost everyone voted with Blair.

[legin]

9. however bad blair is

I think the Tories will be worse at seeing how far they can stick their heads up bush*'s arse.

The only real hope is the Lib Dems.

[AP]

10. Oh my god. You're kidding me. You really don't know?

The Tories are so tight with the Bush family, it isn't funny. It'll be a free for all. They'll totally replciated the bullshit of the Thatcher-Reagan years. It'll be the Overt Imperialists Ball every day of the week.

[Sagan]

43. well, i had assumed so...

no need to get patronizing about it.

the crux of my question was, "if British voters are mad at Labour, are they mad at Labour for being too cozy with the Chimp? And if so, why would they then support the Tories if they are also cozy with the Chimpministration?"

[AP]

47. The answer to that question lies in the answer to the question why CA'ians

voted for Arnold.

It's because the media told them how to think about their financial mess caused by Enron, and they didn't realize they were voting in a friend of Enron who's going to do all the things that made Enron happen againg.

[Classical_Liberal]

21. The Tories won't win

Labor is losing to the Liberal Dem Party, not the Tories.

[AP]

28. You can't say that with certainty.

In summer of '01, Labor was at, like 55, with Lib Dems and Tories tied at 20. The tories have come back from that, and the media isn't stopping their attack on Labor.

Look at what happened in CA. It could happen in the UK...easily.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Duncan Smith is a complete idiot!

For the Tories to be ahead of Labour in any poll is more revealing of how far Blair has turned into the Gray Davis of Britain, in terms of unpopularity, than anything having to do with Duncan Smith.

If the Tories were led by a real leader, like Michael Portillo, Blair would have been doomed a long time ago.

[legin]

11. Duncan Smith's wife

went to school with legin.

I can't think of a bigger insult than that, unfortunaltly for both of us.

:evilgrin:

(It was a big school, I think I may have briefly spoken to her once, maybe)

[AP]

15. It's a reflection of the media assault on Blair.

I'm not saying Blair didn't set things up for them. But let's not be stupid. Just like FOX and CNN bought an election for Arnold, the media wants to get Tories in power in the UK too.

[IndianaGreen]

19. Blair is not worth saving

He is quite expendable, and if Labour is unable to dump him, they deserve electoral defeat.

[AP]

29. There is nobody in the Labour party who could pick up from where Labour

is today and carry it forward without interruption if Blair were dumped.

If Labour turn its back on Blair, Labour will have a problem. Labour would be better off redeeming Blair (or allowing him to redeem himself) and then have him not run for reelection.

That's the deal the party should cut. They need to run on Labour's successes under Blair, or they lose. It's like Gore turning his back on Clinton. Labour should NOT make that stupid mistake.

Blair has done 1000000 good things for Britain and, literally, maybe 4 bad things (and, in that sense, has been much better for Britain than Clinton was for the US). You turn your back on him or you turn your back on all the good things. As Gore should have done, you need to embrace the good stuff or people don't understand its value.

[Classical_Liberal]

25. Blair is trying to kill the BBC and replace them

with Murdock. Murdock papers have been very positive to Blair just like Murdock's Fox news is positive about Bush. The real news media in Britain didn't turn against Blair until he supported the stupid war. you have absolutley no idea what is going on there, and clearly don't understand the difference between the USA and Britain in terms of the political system.

[AP]

30. No he's not doing that. You people! The EU has already told the UK

that it cannot subsidize the entertainment aspects of the BBC and other publicly funded stations becuase that violates EU rules. Govts are not allowed to subsidize companies that engage in the public marketplace because it creates irrationalities. They are allowed to invest in business which have public functions. Airbus gets an exemption because it only competes with Boeing. Public NEWS stations get an exemption. But 90% of what the BBC et al does is entertainment.

So all that stuff has to go private. Naturally, the RW wants to make money off of it. They want to do that by buying it at below market rates. The Blair gov't wants the public to get its money's worth, so they're selling the publicly owed parts to the highest bidder. Of course this is being spun against Blair and the public is to stupid to understand.

For example, VIACOM was going to pay millions for some part of this stuff, and everybody screemed. Notice that this isn't FOX -- the EU takes monopolies seriously, so, because of SKY Media's breadth, it's totally unlikely that any part of BBC et al will go to sky. Also notice that if the Tories were in control, this stuff would not go to the highest bidder, it would get sold at cut-rate prices to insiders, leaving the public -- the rightful owners -- in the lurch. Also, notice, if the UK weren't subsidizing the media and creating an uncompetitive environment for private media companies, there probably would be a British company which could afford to pay a lot of money for these asstets. But -- Catch-22 -- there isn't becuase the gov't has dominated this market for decades.

So come on people. Let's not be morans.

[muriel_volestrangler]

59. AP, can you point me to the EU stuff

When discussion of the BBC's future has come up, I haven't heard of any EU pressure in one direction or another. Can you give me any references? Thanks.

[FlashHarry]

22. Remember William "14 Pints" Hague?

Between he and Smith, the Tories are yesterday's news.

[AP]

31. Kind of like the Republican Party in CA? Don't underestimate the vileness

and the underhandedness of these people.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Duncan Smith is fighting to keep his job (The Guardian)

Duncan Smith widens Tory split

Michael White, political editor
Saturday October 11, 2003
The Guardian

Senior Conservative MPs last night stepped up criticism of Iain Duncan Smith and warned that his combative party conference speech in Blackpool may have increased the likelihood of a leadership challenge rather than diminished it.

In a Radio 4 interview which further upset MPs, Mr Duncan Smith dismissed his critics as a small group of "malcontents" and defended his personal attacks on Tony Blair and Charles Kennedy as justified in the prime minister's case and a joke in Mr Kennedy's.

Together with the threat by the chief whip, David Maclean, to discipline dissidents - judged unwise by some loyal MPs - the interview prompted one of the party's most senior ex-ministers to say: "We are now worse off than we were 24 hours ago."

All sides will spend this weekend testing the mood of their constituency allies and, in the case of the dissidents, each other's nerve to become one of 25 names needed to demand a confidence vote.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1060645,00.html

[bluestateguy]

8. Bush will throw Blari out like yesterday's laundry if he loses

and in fact he and Rove will cheer the "conservative ascendancy" in British politics. They will hang Blair out to dry.

[AP]

16. I can't believe the stupid things people say here.

Bush has been intentionally sabotaging Blair. This is the direction this has all been heading. This is part of the plan for Blair.

[Spazito]

18. Say you're right re Bush sabotaging Blair....

then Blair is too stupid to remain the leader of the Labour Party if he can be taken in by someone like Bush. The Labour Party can turf him, get someone else and be more likely to remain in power than if they keep him.

[AP]

32. Blair is still in power because he's smarter than Bush.

Perhaps.

It amazes me the way the RW'ers will fall in line behind their leaders no matter what, and that liberals eat their own.

There has to be a happy medium.

In any event, I still can't believe the incredibly simplistic, unsophisticated things people say here which passes for 'judgment' and 'insite'.

I'm gonna guess that a lot of you never even heard about Tony Blair before this all happened.

[Spazito]

33. I don't know about anyone else but I had certainly heard of ...

Tony Blair and watched him carefully from the time he was first elected. He is a VERY different man from then to now.

[AP]

36. Oh my god. It's a very different world. The fascists are turning the tide.

It takes all sorts of strategies that don't look quite right ont he surface to fight back.

I remember thinking when Blair and other liberals were winning elections all over the world in the late 90s that we were seeing a golden age of liberalism. That things were truly changing for the better all over the world. Obviously, what was going on was, largely, a product of an America that wasn't sabotaging liberals.

Well, now we have Bush, and, voila, things are changing. Blair doesn't want this world. He's trying his hardest to hold the line until Bush is gone. The guy has incredible courage.

[uhhuh]

24. AP

I agree that you may have a point about the chimp working against Blair. The problem is that Blair is doing nothing to stop him. He is not taking any positions in opposition to the chimp. If he is to save himself, he is going to have to do something other than he is doing now. If he can't, he is going down. That may be a bad result, but he is only enabling this by continuing to stonewall and insisting on policies that most don't agree with and that seem irrational.

The fact that he has done or said nothing to indicate that he is being set up by the chimp administration doesn't help, as well as his cabinet's open hostility to the media isn't helping him either. He needs to distance himself from the chimp. That's his only chance.

No matter what he is doing domestically, the Iraq war is becoming a referendum on Blair. He has to show some real leadership and guts on that front, and either convince people the war was a grand idea,(which isn't working), or slowly back away from the incestuous relationship with the U.S., in order to regain some credibility in the U.K. If he doesn't, right or wrong, he's done.

[AP]

34. So, because you think Blair isn't doing anything to stop Bush, we should..

get on board with Bush's project to destroy him.

That the same idiotic thought process which probably led to Democrats voting Yes on the recall.

And Blair DOES take positions against the chimp, but the media isn't reporting it and the analysis here isn't all that sophisticated. Did you LISTEN to Blairs address to Congress this summer? Do you pay attention to Britain's meetings with France and Germany plotting the next steps for Europe in Iraq? Did you listen to Blair's speech at Bournmouth?

Blair could still come out of this looking like a genius. I think they dealt with the Hutton inquiry really well, all things considered. If Gore were PM of Britian and edured that, he'd be gone. And all the while, he's lowering unemployment, raising wages, and spreading wealth to the middle and working class (especially the bottom two quintiles).

I heard on Democracy Now an ex-CIA officer say that the plan with Niger uranium plan all along was to blame Blair. I bet a lot of the US's failure to find shit in Iraq has to do with their desire to to sink Blair. But you know what Blair is probably holding out for. He probably knows that Bush is going to have to make Iraq look like a success before next November, and that will inevitably take heat of Blair. They'll find some shit there, or something will happen. But you know what else Blair probably hopes for: a Democratic victory in November.

What the hell do you think will happen to Blair if, say, Edwards gets elected. Blair and Edwards could be the new Glimmer Twins. You know they'll get their shit together and turn Baghdad into the Paris of the Middle East, and they'll kick out Halliburon, and they'll forever remove Iraq as potential tool for subterfuge by the RW'ers.

So why would Blair go around today and talk alot of shit that makes him look like a baby if he can sit tight for 13 months and see everything put right by a Democratic victory

[uhhuh]

38. That's absurd

I didn't say anywhere that we should get rid of Blair, or help the RW sabotage him. I said it was his job to save himself. If you think he can just sit back and wait 18 months, and that is the best strategy, that is the kind of thinking that led to the Dems losing the senate in 2002. I don't like what is being done to Blair, but he has to find a way to stop it, or at least draw attention to it if he wants to survive.

I saw what Blair said to Congress,and he didn't say anything that could not be construed as a blanket support of this illegal war. If you are saying that Blair's only strategy is to hope for a Dem victory, and has no contingency if that doesn't happen, he is a fool.

It is Blair's job to make people understand what he is doing. If he can't do that, whether or not it's good thing, he may lose power.

[AP]

39. You think you know what Blair needs to do to survive.

I think Blair knows what he needs to do to survive.

So let's see if he can survive.

The bottom line for now is that I think it's not only useless, but it's stupid for DU'ers to say things like he ought to get kicked out of the party, or that Bush likes him (that's one of the stupides things I've read here).

[Classical_Liberal]

26. Blair helped Bush sabotage his own government then

. It was an assisted suicide, and Labor should unhitch their wagons to that crazy horse.

[AP]

35. The guy has done 1million things right and 4 things wrong, and you want

to unhitch the wagon?

No wonder the Republicans have such an easy time kicking liberals around.

I'm making a list of people the RW has sabotaged, and those who stood up to the RW:

Sabotaged:
Gray Davis, Al Gore

Kicked RW ass:
Mary Landrieu, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Göran Persson, Hugo Chavez, FDR

Now, are we going to root for Tony Blair to fall into the "sabotaged" category or the Ass-Kicking category. I don't know about you, but I'm hoping he falles into the ass-kicking category. I'll be rooting for that.

Oh, by the way, there's a third category:

MLK, JFK, RFK, Olaf Palm, Gandhi, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Anna Lindh.

In the memory of those people, I'm not going to turn my back on the people who are trying hard not to get their asses kicked by the fascists.

[Classical_Liberal]

20. The liberal Dems have gained more than the Tories

It will be a liberal coalition government, and Blair will be out, but it won't be the rebirth of the Tories.

[roguevalley]

37. Not if they dump Blair. Hope they do.

Why should Britain go down the toilet with us?

[AP]

40. Labour dumping Blair would be like Gore turning back on Clinton over

a blow job.

When you turn your back on the leader for one bad move, you turn your back on everything good that person did too, and you run a huge risk of the public thinking you aren' t committed to the good things.

Gore would have won had he embraced Clinton's record, I think.

[lanlady]

42. the situations are not comparable at all

Blair dragged Britain into an ugly, preemptive war based on lies and calculated deceit. He is what the Italians call a "stronzo"--the tip of a turd, the turd in this case being the Bush administration. Britain derived no benefit whatsoever from its involvement in the misadventure. Blair let his countrymen down and should take responsibility for his misdeeds like a goddamn man. But no, the little stronzo continues to float around in the toilet bowl. Flush him, I say, and good riddance to the POS.

[AP]

48. Blair didn't drag Britian in. Blair fought against war as a solution

(notice you have to read this in a book --The End of the American Era -- because the media conveniently leaves that part out of the spin).

Britian is retaining influence over the future of what happens in Iraq by being in Iraq. And what happens in Iraq is going to be vitally important to how Europe's economy develops.

This is the US strategy: control the European economy. Squeeze it until the pips squeak. When the pips squeak, use the media to tell the public that it's their liberal government's fault. Use the media to convince people that charismatic fascists are the solution to their problems. That's what they've done from Chile '73 to California '03. Blair is doing a better job than anyone standing against that.

Doesn't anyone remember how the British Army was described as America's conscience in Iraq. Would you be happier if there were no conscience in Iraq? If the US had free reign?

You know, you don't hear about it, but I wonder if Basra is considered a haven for Iraqis now. I wonder if it's a place where chaos doesn't reign. I wonder if, when the US falls, the people who step forward to run the country democratically and fairly, are people who step out of Basra where the British allowed them to discuss among themselves in a peaceful environment what they want for the future of Iraq.

Now, I don't know if that's happening. I'm just saying I wouldn' t be surprised. Part of the reason I feel this way is because of Blair's attitude towards Israel. Blair has given speeches and talked about how the UK is largely responsible for creating the situation which has led to all the problems in Israel, and he's committed to a peaceful solution to the problem, as the UK owes it to these people. The guy is clearly committed to reducing chaos in the world and increasing democracy.

And it would have been harder for that to happen if the UK wasn't involved in Iraq now.

[TankLV]

50. Boy do you ever have a selective memory!

Just recently, when confronted with the facts of the lies that BLAIRS admin created, he said he would still invade iraq.

When confronted with the massive MILLIONS who protested against this illegal war, with over 70% of Britian's population AGAINST this war, BLAIR still UNILATERALLY DECIDED, against the will of his own party and people, to join bunkerboy!

He is a piece of shit and Labour should get rid of him. Blair or Torries - same bad news for Britian.

Having the torries come to power is simply awful. Having Blair remain in power is only slightly less awful due to the fact that the rest of Labour has so many good policies/positions.

The poodle, and the poodle alone brought Labour & Britian to this awful juncture. The fact that there has been no apparent person(s) in line to take over now is unfortunate. But I'm sure they can find someone once they decide to change course. The poodle himself was an unknown quantity at first and grew at first into his job. Now he is simply like a cancer that has to be gotton rid of, the sooner the better for progressives around the world. To hang our progressive hat on ONE man is suicide, which we are witnessing now, unfortunately.

The sooner he is gone, the better for the rest of the world. And it will help create a crisis of confidence he w/bunkerboy if he should be forced out and Labour picks someone else to lead them, which is a big plus.

[AP]

53. Blair alone brought the UK to this point?

I simply have to disagree. Notwithstanding Blair's (quite predictable, from a political perspective) statement that he wouldn't have done anything differently, Blair DID try hard to prevent an invasion of Iraq.

But you know what? The UK isn't powerful enough to stop the VRW Neocon Power. So it was on to a plan B which wouldn't lead towards RW sabotage. Since Blair is still standing and only has to hold out until next November when, hopefully, a Dem will be president, I'm counting on Blair to fend off the fascists.

[Bridget Burke]

60. Blair has a "Cunning & Subtle Plan"

(Just like Baldrick.)

I hope the families of the Brits who have died appreciate his political gamesmanship.

[Matilda]

62. I think you're looking at Blair through rose-coloured glasses.

Blair came to Australia during the Hawke/Keating term in office to
study what they were doing. They were Labor Right, and modelled
themselves on Margaret Thatcher. They looked to business as their
base, not the traditional trade union base of the past. Blair is
doing exactly the same. He's into privatisation - and no, it's
not in the interests of any group except corporations - and he's
following Thatcher's union-bashing policies. He might be slightly
to the left of the Conservatives, but I don't consider him truly
left-wing, any more than Hawke and Keating were. He'll survive
because at the moment, there's no other credible leader, but in the
end he'll fall big-time, as Keating did in 1993, and as the Democrats
in the U.S. are currently doing. No party can serve both corporations and working men and women at the same time - it has to be one or the other.

And there is no doubt that Blair dragged his party and his country
into the Iraq war against the wishes of the majority, and in that he's following the old British colonial pattern of operation. Invade and exploit is the name of the game, and Blair's in it up
to his ears.

[burr]

56. Nice story...

but any poll that doesn't include the margin of error can't be taken seriously. It could be as high as 100% or as low as 3%, but why worry about it until you know?

Besides, aren't the MPs or members of parliament elected from regional districts?

An accurate poll would reflect the feelings in the majority of districts, not of the entire country. It would be like a national poll showing that a Democratic Congress would have more support than the current Congress, we have seen these in 94, 96, 98, and 2000 but still do not control the Congress.

[T_i_B]

58. Half Nation Tories

Part of the tories problem is that they are essentially a home counties parochial party these days, as this aricle so deftly illustrates. Outside of the South-East of England the tories are dying on their arse at an alarming rate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1054854,00.html

The Tory party now has only 17 MPs in the north compared with 73 in the south-east. Until 2001, at least the identifiably northern leadership of William Hague meant that an appearance of geographical breadth could just about be maintained. With the sublimely southern Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford), even that has gone. The Tory frontbench sits as one of the least representative cabals in the party's modern history. When Theresa May (Maidenhead), Michael Howard (Folkestone) and Damian Green (Ashford) speak for England, it is a very small corner of England indeed. Wales and Scotland have long since been ceded.

So next week the Winter Gardens will strain to hear the voice of a Tory Liverpudlian, the Lancashire accent of a latter-day Rhodes Boyson or some Yorkshire common sense, as even those Tories who manage to represent northern seats are invariably drawn from the south. Tim Collins, the transport spokesman, holds on to Westmorland and Lonsdale but is a quintessential Essex man. George Osborne valiantly took back Tatton but is a thoroughly metropolitan product. Only Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) and his wife Ann (Congleton) remain as relics of a bygone age: true northern Tories representing northern seats.

The political consequence of this regional skewing is apparent in the party's priorities. It rarely worries about unemployment or the minimum wage but is more preoccupied with capital gains tax and house prices. Congestion charging is higher up the agenda than inner-city renewal, while the needs of the City of London, rather than of industry, dictate the entirety of its economic strategy. But, above all, asylum has become the cornerstone of the Tory programme as southern counties disproportionately register fears over an influx of migrant labour.

All of which makes Conservative aspirations to be a party of government the more illusory. Bar the odd exception, the modern Tory party has become a southern rump whose heartland is contained within the M25 (but outside central London) and whose democratic legitimacy barely extends beyond Staffordshire. The gathering in Blackpool promises to be of great historic worth - for it might well be one of the last sightings of northern Toryism.

[LoneStarLiberal]

61. Tories Are The Party Of The Retirement Home

I watched the hour of Iain Duncan Smith's keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference that was re-aired on C-SPAN last night.

Just in looking at the crowd shots you could see the problem that the Tories have outside (and inside) the Home Counties: THEY ARE ALL AGING!! There was hardly a face that looked to be under 60 in most of the audience. There were a small sliver of students who cheered Duncan Smith's proposal to cut tution at university, but outside of this one group the audience was overwhelmingly aged.

This has been a developing problem for the Tories for the better part of a decade. It's almost as if they haven't bothered to recruit anyone else since Thatcher was in office!

[T_i_B]

63. That's true

The tories these days are very much an old person's party and also a Home Counties parochial party. The party is not really gaining outside of these two areas. The tory party needs to broaden its appeal but does not have the ability to do that or indeed to learn from the mistakes that have resulted in Blair repeatedly taking them to the cleaners at election time. For these reasons the tory party is dying off at the moment.

Speaking of this sort of thing, Dimwit-Smith is currently embroiled in sleaze allegations. Make of this what you will.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1062490,00.html

Iain Duncan Smith was last night forced to submit a dossier of his wife's secretarial activities to the parliamentary standards commissioner to defend himself from charges of "financial wrongdoing" that could finally tip his leadership of the Conservative party over the edge.

"I totally reject claims reported in the media, and set out in Mr Crick's dossier presented to you today, that I was guilty of financial wrongdoing in the employment of my wife as a diary secretary," it begins.

But Mr Duncan Smith's angry denials, backed up by four statements from party officials, did not make Michael Crick, the BBC investigative reporter, retreat from his own extensively researched assertions submitted to the commissioner yesterday that Betsy Duncan Smith did not do £18,000 worth of work during the 15 months she was on the new opposition leader's payroll.