Goodbye Geoff Hoon, You Hoon.

[TheBigotBasher]

So the Hoon is going. Geoff Hoon quits knowing he is a failure of a politician in the eyes of the public.

Geoff Hoon resigns his seat, the Constituency of Ashfield at the next General Election. Good bloody riddance.

Political careers always end in failure, Mr Hoon's is no different. It is unfortunate that his proudest moment in politics represented one of the low points in history for the United Kingdom and the United States.

It is sad to think that the Hoon probably has this picture on his mantlepiece.



The failed Ex Secretary of State for Defence who was responsible for implementing the War crimes of Tony Blair, who then became a failed Candidate for EU High Commissioner and then became Leader of a failed putsch against Gordon Brown, is too cowardly to see face an electorate who I am sure would have been delighted to show Mr Hoon the Hoon what they felt of him.

Geoff Hoon should be grateful, history has been very unkind to him. His happy hand holding days with Donald Rumsfield are by many, long forgotten.

His idiocy was sadly nothing to be laughed at.

He went much further than his American collegaues, suggesting Britain was prepared to go nuclear against Iraq.

The Hoon claimed, in Parliament, that two trailers found in Iraq were mobile weapons laboratories, and continued to repeat that claim, despite knowing that the trailers were for filling hydrogen balloons.

The Hoon had Departmental responsibility for the death of Dr David Kelly, the man whose apparent suicide was at the very least caused by his Department setting New Labour attack dogs on him. The Hoon admitted, maybe his Department could have done more for Dr Kelly.

It was put to Hoon in a Radio 4 interview that an Iraqi mother of a child killed by one of over 800 unexploded cluster bomblets dropped over Iraq, shortly after the invasion, would not thank the British army. He replied "One day they might".

The Hoon was personally condemned by an international delegation of European MPs for evading questions about Britain's co-operation with the CIA's so-called 'extraordinary rendition' programme.

A Council of Europe report found that Britain was heavily involved in the US kidnapping and torture programme.

Despite his disgraceful actions and inactions, he will be remembered not for his time as Secretary of State for Defence, a once great office. He will be remembered for being a hoon. A Hoon in name and a hoon by nature.

"
Geoff Hoon - the Hoon. How will always be remembered.

The Comical Ali of British politics. So great a political failure that if ever the crimes of Tony Blair and George Bush were put before a Court, his role in that would just be laughed off.

His personal abuse of taxpayers funds should not  be forgotten either. He rented out his London home and claimed expenses on his constituency house. While doing so, he had lived in state-owned, rent-free housing in Admiralty House. The Hoon said that he had only claimed what he was entitled to.

Being a hoon, that wasn't the limit of his greed either. On top of getting expenses for a property he was renting out, while living rent free, the Hoon was taking full advantage of the property bubble that has left millions of people in debt, without a home (something a Labour Minister now dismisses as probably a good thing for many), and without a job, while flipping his "main home" to avoid capital gains tax.

Goodbye Geoof Hoon, you disgrace to public office.  It is a pity that the public did not get to see you being defeated on election night, that would have been a final  of act of political decency you could have displayed towards the United Kingdom. Not unexpected though, you had to hoon that up as well.

[T_i_B]

1. "It is a pity that the public did not get to see you being defeated on election night"

That might not have been feasable, given that the Labour majority in Ashfield is 10,213.

[TheBigotBasher]

2. The Liberal Democrats pounded Labour in the local Council elections.

A Council Labour used to have 100% control of. As the embodiment of New Labour and given that he was one of the MP's with his hand near the til there was potential for an upset.

That potential has not entirely dissipated either, Labour may impose a carpet-bagger on the constituency and that will not go down well with the local party.

[T_i_B]

4. Lib Dem's are in 3rd place in Ashfield behind the Tories

And the Tories would need an enormous swing in that constituency to get shot of Labour.

[TheBigotBasher]

5. Ashfield Council political make up

(Pretty much covers the Parliamentary constituency)

Liberal Democrats 13
Labour 8
Independent 4
Conservative 3
Non aligned 3
Selson Area Independents 2

This from an a Council that used to be 100% Labour.

The Leader of the Council is the Liberal Democrat candidate.

[T_i_B]

9. The results from the last general election (which are slightly more relevent)

Geoff Hoon (Labour) 20,433 votes

Giles Inglis-Jones (Conservative) 10,220 votes

Wendy Johnson (Liberal Democrat) 5,829 votes

Roy Adkins (Ashfield Independents) 2,292

Kate Allsop (Independent) 1,900

Sarah Hemstock (Veritas) 1,108

Eddie Grenfell (Independent) 269


I'm sorry but there's no way that the Lib Dems are going to get elected in Ashfield, no matter how many dodgy bar charts they use on their leaflets.

[TheBigotBasher]

17. 2010 results

04:03 WINNER ANNOUCED: And as if by magic here it comes! Gloria de Piero has taken Ashfield by a tiny margin from the Liberal Democrat's Jason Zadrozny.
Gloria took 16,239 votes compared to Jason's 16,047. Other votes went to Conservative Garry Hickton (10,698), BNP member Edward Holmes (2,781), English Democrat candidate Tony Ellis (1,102), UKIP's Terry Coleman (933) and Independent Eddie Smith (396). There were 61 spoilt papers rejected.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. I'm not sure local elections are a good signifier for general elections

Government parties tend to get punished mid-parliament in local and European elections. Even Labour did before Blair lost his approval ratings.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Prick

Him not you.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Good riddance to bad rubbish...

though I'm not sure that I wanted to see him defeated on election night, as I'd rather see him replaced by another Labourite than a Tory.

I understand that in Australia, the word 'hoon' used to mean 'pimp' and now means thug in general, and reckless driver in particular.

Slimy bastard, anyway.

[TheBigotBasher]

8. If he was still standing

I would have put money on the the Liberal Democrat Leader of the Council winning his seat. For imagery, in terms of killing off Neo Con Labour, his defeat would have been the equivalent of the Portaloo losing.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

12. As an Aussie

I must concede that the definition you refer to was the reason why I always found it so hard to take him seriously -every time his name popped up, the image of what a "hoon" is always popped up in my head and I had trouble picturing him as anything other than that definition.

That having been said, I never liked him even without that. A slimy, creepy bastard who had no trouble cheerleading for an illegal and immoral war based on lies and falsehoods which he helped to invent. He is the perfect embodiment of everything I hate about the modern British Labour Party

[Michael_UK2]

10. Can't say I'm a big fan of Hoon

[Michael_UK2]

11. he was caught up in the paper today

with Stephen Byers

[BolivarianHero]

13. I can't believe these people were stupid enough to re-elect Hoon...

Is the British working class so ignorant and disempowered that they'd elect whichever vile reich-wing POS claims its namesake.

[LeftishBrit]

14. Well, it's not as though they had much of a choice there. Voting Tory would have been worse!

[Nihil]

16. Voting for a dead dog would have been better ...

... regardless of which colour rosette it was wearing at the time ...
:shrug:

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. He lost more votes the more they got to know him

results since they elected him in 1992:

1992 55% (this was a seat Frank Haynes had held for Labour since 1979, and the only time the Tories had won in since 1955 was in a 1977 by-election, so it's pretty rock-solid Labour)
1997 65% (anything with a red rosette increased its vote that year)
2001 58% (he'd been Defence Secretary sine 1999, and the sheen was coming off him)
2005 49% (16% less than 1997 - that's pretty unpopular).