Go vote Jury Team!

Alan Wallace is a tremendous candidate and wouldn’t be whipped.

Read his blog thepartysover on blogspot

I was just leaving the house to go and vote, when this nice young man with a red rosette offered to hand-deliver a Postal Vote for me instead.

Personal service – how lovely!

Dungeekin

Yep, happily voting against New Liebour. I shall do it this evening and it will put a spring in my step.
) ) )

Yes, sah!

Going right now

Consider it done.

Yes let’s all work for a Tory government. Can’t wait.

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot the vote was today.

Done.

@eddie – it is that kind of defeatism that has you asking for us all to vote for (Labour) war criminals and authoritarians in our droves. What awful, novel crime would the Labour party have to do in order for you to admit that trying for an alternative is a good idea?

The only alternative is Tory. Your choice. If you don’t vote Labour that is what you will get because no one else can form a government. Obviously I don’t agree with your first sentence which is tendentious and untrue. But I am relishing the prospect of reading threads here a year from now when a Tory government is doing all the things that tory governments do. Perhaps some of the saner among you will then be saying, “well perhaps the Labour government wasn’t so bad after all”. This governement and parliament is finished, I accept that.

Done. Green.

It is indeed my choice, and this evening I will be exercising real choice and voting neither Labour nor Tory. I don’t think it is true or fair to dismiss anyone who disagrees with the suggestion that Labour were not so bad after all as not “sane” – that is so blindly partisan it fails to see the wood for the trees.

Monbiot highlighted many inconsistencies to Hazel Blears in her self-sabotaging interview, and I think they reveal how Tory the Labour party has become. As we know the list is disastrous: Yes to environmentalism, but yes to runway expansion; yes to the HRA but yes to 1m+ dead in illegal wars; yes to US imperialism, and yes to Israeli bias on the Palestine question. Yes to higher rate of tax (more out of necessity than principle) but no to reducing inequality and social mobility overall. Yes to the politics of fear, and a resounding no to civil liberties. Yes to privatisation, no to index-linked state pensions etc etc.

What has the Labour party done that it can be proud of, do you think? Why do you think that the Lib Dems or the Greens would be unable to form a govt?

I just looked at the website of the British Embassy in Tokyo and there is nothing to tell me how to vote while resident abroad. I think that tells me something.

Jon:

“What has the Labour party done that it can be proud of, do you think?”

I’m no longer a Labour supporter and won’t be voting for them today but, to give credit where credit’s due, I think their efforts to bring about a political settlement in Northern Ireland were absolutely first-rate.

@MJ, I would agree. Whilst I won’t fault them on that, the success there does make a mockery of their “won’t talk to terrorists” policy that excuses their bias against the Palestinians.

And I wonder how much of the NI success was down to Mo Mowlam, rather than Blair. I can’t quite square the image of the latter, grinning like a maniac and absorbing the media limelight, with what he did to Iraq and Palestine. I thought it was a cheeky little joke from Charlotte Green she announced he was to be appointed as Middle East Peace Envoy.

@Craig

It might state the obvious, but could you put in your post:

> Get up, walk out the door and go

> and vote against both New Labour

> and the BNP.

Needless to say, New Labour are a bunch of criminals, but I would rather have them than vote for fascists.

For a start I don’t accept 1 million plus dead or “illegal wars” – sez who? If they are illegal why no prosecutions? Bluff and bluster on your part I think. Look at Iraq Body Count

As for, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” (which are you the Judean People’s Front or the People’s Front of Judea?)

1.Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s

2. Low mortgage rates

3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.35

4. Record police numbers in England, Scotland and Wales

5. Cut overall crime by 35 per cent

6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools

7. Best-ever primary school results

8. Funding for every pupil in England to double by 2008

9. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries

10. 85,000 more nurses

11. 32,000 more doctors

12. Brought back matrons to hospital wards

13. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament

14. Devolved power to Welsh Assembly

15. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time

16. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice

17. Gift aid was worth £625 million to charities last year

18. Restored city-wide government to London

19. Record number of students in higher education

20. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997

21. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households

22. Introduced the Disability Rights Commission

23. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra £100 for over-80s

24. On course to exceed the Kyoto target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010

25. Negotiated the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland

26. Over 30,000 more teachers in England schools

27. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks’ paid holiday

28. A million pensioners lifted out of relative poverty

29. 800,000 children lifted out of relative poverty

30. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents

31. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships

32. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard

32. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales

33. Banned fox hunting

34. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since the industrial revolution

35. Free TV licences for over-75s

36. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals

37. Waiting times for operations halved

38. Free local bus travel for over-60s

39. New Deal – helped over a million people into work

40. Over 1.5 million child trust funds have been started

41. Free eye test for over 60s

42. Brought peace to Northern Ireland

I could go on, but I know these things probably mean nothing to you as you don’t live in the real world. They mean a lot to a lot of people, not least the people of Northern Ireland.

I think you should be proud of all those things, if not, why not? As for the greens and lib dems don’t make me laugh. Clegg is a disaster. Have you actually seen him in the House? He is a laughing stock. The only lib dem with any credibility is vince cable.

Your blog is my home page,Mr Murray.However I did vote Labour.Proudly.

eddie: fair point. To be picky, not all can be exclusively attributed to Labour (inflation, mortgages) and some are dubious (despite funding increases and SATs results, standards of primary education are frighteningly poor).

My main point however is that almost everything Labour did that was good was done in its first term. Since 2001 it has been awful and has turned the UK into a police state.

MJ – thank you for your graciousness. But the UK a police state? Please. Don’t. Be. Silly. If you knew what a real police state was like you would not make such ludicrous claims. Have you ever read any history? Have you read 1984? The very fact that we are both writing this garbage proves beyond reasonable doubt that we do not live in a police state. Perhaps your personal circumstances are different to mine, but I think the UK now is a much better place to live than 20 or 30 years ago. I know there are lots of minor irritants, but the balance of progress has been positive.

I voted SNP by post last week. If in Wales I’d have voted Plaid and in England I’d have voted Green.

I had a good chuckle at some of the issues on eddie’s nuLabour crib sheet. My personal favourite from it has to be: “low mortgage rates”!

I’ve made some points on IBC vs. Lancet debate on two other threads, so won’t repeat that here. But I would add the obvious problem with the IBC figures: they only report what the media reports. That should put enough doubt in your mind about what they are measuring. Your “sez who” is disingenuous, as you already know that it was the Lancet that carried this piece (it was an item of discussion here some while back).

You have some good points in your list, but accompanying it with the suggestion that I don’t live in the real world cheapens the debate. I am tired of pointing out the regularly abusive nature of your posting, and would remind you that I have never been abusive towards you.

But the list requires a lot of faith to take it at face value. Some developing country debt has been struck off in theory, but in practise much has been withheld. Ask the Jubilee 2000 coalition about this, or Oxfam.

I’ve heard several mentions about children being lifted out of poverty, but against a backdrop of worsening inequality and social mobility, it doesn’t explain the full picture, does it? Labour’s boasting about being “seriously relaxed about people being filthy rich” goes some way to show that the favouring of the wealthy is a deliberate state of affairs.

I haven’t checked the employment figures but any positive performance is balanced out by the Brown’s liberalisation of financial instruments that has deepened our involvement in the global economic meltdown. This is costing thousands of jobs, and is presently set to cost many more.

However I do concede you have some good items on your list, and you should not be under the impression that everyone is saying that Labour have not done anything decent. The point I am making is that it is felt that the major failings – well pointed out on this blog and in the comments – more than outweigh the achievements. It is my view that Blair/Brown have presided over a genocide in Iraq that we could have stopped, and I am not sure there is any amount of increased employment in the UK that I think would balance that out.

You have not answered the point convincingly about a Lib Dem or a Green govt. Sure, the idea is mocked in the MSM – and I think there are several reasons for that – but that is not a good reason in itself to join in. Why do you think that the policies offered by the Lib Dems or the Greens would be so bad for Britain? Each would include some of the progressive ideals from your list, undoubtedly.

Concerning hospital waiting times, it so happens I have a cousin who is a surgeon who told me something interesting: to get the official waiting time in casualty wards down to 4 hours (‘or else’), they put patients in corridors, trimmed up with a few bits of furniture, so that they can count as ‘wards’. Real Soviet survival technique. Dame Stella Rimington, the ex-chief of MI5, was right when she warned in her autobiography that an obsession with targets, so beloved of New Labour, would usher in a culture of dishonesty.

I will vote this evening. Rest assured, it won’t be New Labour.

I’m sure Fred West planted a few flowers and Harold Shipman saved a few patients. That doesn’t change what they are and wouldn’t make me willing to vote for them if they were still alive.

I hope New Labour go the same way as Fred and Harold soon and leave room for something better to form in their place. If a few more years back under the Tory Party is the price we pay then so be it.

It’s not the voters’ fault; it’s New Labour’s.

Jon

I apologise if I have abused you, I get so much abuse here that I assume everyone is the same and probably lose track of who said what. Your points are reasonable. All I can say is that governments try their best and don’t always succeed. Every government is beholden to global forces to a large extent. On balance, I think Labour has done more good than bad. But they are now tired and past their sell by date.

Regarding greens and Libs, my comments were hyperbolic. I don’t think much of Clegg but Cable would probably make a great chancellor and some form of lib lab pact may be possible in the future. From my own knowledge of libs at a local level I distrust them. I think they try to be all things to all people and they lie and distort in their literature. The greens I know less about. I know a lot about climate change and I know we have to do something, but the problem for the greens is that everyone thinks that other people should do something, not me!

As for IBC/Lancet. The Lancet study is way out of kilter with all the studies that have been done, not just IBC. See wiki. Its estimates are ten times the figures in other studies, so any reasonable person would treat it with scepticism I feel.

Dear Craig

I went down my local polling station and cast my vote for the SNP.

I see it as a public duty to put New Labour on its collective arse.

If they held a gun to my head to threaten me I would tell them to go f**k themselves the human rights abusing bastards.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

IBC were not (originally) only counting deaths in the MSM, but only in *English language* MSM.

Plus, the Lancet study methodology had been used and accepted for various studies all over the world, and nobody criticised it or tried to debunk the figures — until the politically-charged study on Iraqi deaths.

PLUS, there is another indpendent study done by Opinion Research Business which estimated deaths at 1.2 million and counting, in September 2007. This study received little or no coverage in the Enlish language MSM.

You’ll find it on Wiki, Eddie.

Dear All

Eddie the Eagle has posted a list of success. Here are my thoughts.

1.Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s

Built on a debt bubble that has burst!

2. Low mortgage rates

Home repossessions up and mortgage availability restricted

3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.35

And that is what it is a minimum that traps people in poverty.

4. Record police numbers in England, Scotland and Wales

The SNP run Scotland not Labour.

5. Cut overall crime by 35 per cent

Dependent on how the stats are compiled.

6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools

Schools are failing.

7. Best-ever primary school results

What are the stats for failure?

8. Funding for every pupil in England to double by 2008

So an expensive failure!

9. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries

And poverty levels in this country rocket.

10. 85,000 more nurses

How many have left or retired?

11. 32,000 more doctors

Again how many?

12. Brought back matrons to hospital wards

Carry on Film policy.

13. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament

And try to rig it to ensure a Labour majority.

14. Devolved power to Welsh Assembly

And try to rig it to ensure a Labour majority.

15. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time

Wow that will may a difference if they have a job!

16. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice

Health Care is free/

17. Gift aid was worth £625 million to charities last year

Why isn’t it reaching deprived areas?

18. Restored city-wide government to London

Didn’t they have local government before?

19. Record number of students in higher education

And no jobs at the end of it! The educated unemployed so they know they are fucked!

20. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997

And rent, council tax, food, gas and electricity up too.

21. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households

Such a success that record numbers of poor children failing and falling at University.

22. Introduced the Disability Rights Commission

And whether they will fight for you is subject to status.

23. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra £100 for over-80s

And nothing to the unemployed.

24. On course to exceed the Kyoto target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010

Well, given that Labour fail everything I wouldn’t hold my breath.

25. Negotiated the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland

I thought others were involved?

26. Over 30,000 more teachers in England schools

In Scotland Labour are closing schools and making teachers unemployed/

27. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks’ paid holiday

4 weeks of minimum wage, Monaco here we come!

28. A million pensioners lifted out of relative poverty

Relative to whom, those on JSA?

29. 800,000 children lifted out of relative poverty

But still claiming benefits?

30. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents

And nothing to single people.

31. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.

Some campaigners for Scrapping Section 28 were done for being involved a paedophile ring, like James Rennie, Chief Executive of LGBT Scotland. In an online conversation with another accused, he even expressed a wish to see children with Down’s Syndrome or a learning disability sexually abused.

32. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard

Don’t you mean Councils and Housing Associations?

32. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales

How many?

33. Banned fox hunting

Yes, poor people mention that all the time.

34. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since the industrial revolution

Wow, since the industrial revolution?

35. Free TV licences for over-75s

Fantastic!

36. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals

When?

37. Waiting times for operations halved

All operations?

38. Free local bus travel for over-60s

A day out with no money, wow!

39. New Deal – helped over a million people into work

Don’t you mean forced into dead end jobs on minimum wage?

40. Over 1.5 million child trust funds have been started

People could have opened a savings account if they wanted to for their kid.

41. Free eye test for over 60s

Fantastic!

42. Brought peace to Northern Ireland

Rubbish, the Tories started the talks under Major.

Please note 25 and 42; he takes credit for the same thing twice!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Don’t waste your time on eddie people. He isn’t here for intelligent discussion and isn’t just a misguided, uneducated soul. If he was i’d admire all your efforts though. I’m convinced, philosophically one can’t be sure I know, that he is a spook tithead. He just wants to cause disruption and promote the official version of our society. Our talk can’t go unchallenged. My logic is that they assume that undecided folk will always be reassured by the official narrative and not be converted. I have seen this so many times on so many forums and blogs, even chat rooms. There is a gang of these scrotes patrolling the internet. I know when people are just expressing their honest opinions. I know what random trolls are and he doesn’t fit the random troll M.O. in my view. He ‘strongly’ reminds me of ‘The Jessy’, I believe they are one and the same, and if you take time to look back and compare their posts you will see striking similarities on many levels. Just my opinion anyway.

Hi Eddie,

Oh lordy – another NuLab troll with bullet-point lists. You missed one, Eddie:

(n) Made trains run on time.

I had a little fall-out with my wife this morning. She wanted to know what I was doing on the internet – and I immediately switched screens.

She said what are you trying to hide from me ( I wasn’t watching porn – honest – why on earth would I want to do that? )

No – I was finding the lyrics to Crazy – Gnarls Barkley – to try and construct an answer to eddie – who personally attacked me for having “a personal problem”

It was too hard to try and explain to my lovely wife – so she went off in a sulk – and said some nasty things.

So I got the bikes out and pumped up the tyres – and said – well are you coming for a bike ride with me.

She said – Go By Yourself

I said – well I want to go with You – and I will vote on the Way.

Don’t you want to vote?

So we cycled to the polling booth and we both voted – and then we went for a long cycle in the Countryside.

When we got home a nice lady with her son knocked on our door – and said are you going to vote.

Despite what I said earlier – I was really polite and nice to her.

I do respect Democracy – particularly local people who get off their arse – and get themselves elected.

She is my local councillor. She beat my mate across the road by a whisker.

Tony

No-one died in Iraq and no-one is dying in Afghanistan. Didn’t you know? It was all filmed on the moon. Tony Blair is Jesus, Gordon Brown, Saint Paul and everything is good and getting better. Corporate capitalism is the only true path. It is shining, it is light, it is God. Hallelujah. Amen.

Haha. I knew I was missing something. Thanks for your guidance Suhayl!

Laughing @ Suhayl … I needed that.

@eddie

Thank you for your measured response. We will have to disagree on the Lancet issue, but then my views on institutional media bias are probably a touch more radical than yours (as a paying Media Lens subscriber I would naturally be more cynical about a media survey like IBC, I wonder?).

You are right about govts being beholden to global forces, but perhaps our primary difference of opinion comes about because I view New Labour has having been *part* of the global force [of neoliberalism] rather than simply being subjected to it. Quite how this Thatcherite view has developed in the Labour party is quite beyond me, but it explains why internal debate and democracy in the party has had to be shut down.

I also struggle to balance some of the good points you’ve made with the Iraq disaster, which was, after the evidence of memos and statements are analysed, a quite deliberate and sustained project to invade a sovereign country on knowingly false pretexts, without the UNSC agreement that was initially required. I don’t mean this rudely, but in my view any statement of belief contrary to that is not compatible with the breadth of opinion the (old) Labour party stood for (the neo-con right of the Tory party, perhaps). (I have always maintained that this is a separate issue to whether Hussein should have been deposed i.e. I believe in the maxim that dishonest means cannot be justified by “good” ends – certainly not by democratic govts anyway).

With all that in mind, even if I were to plump for the IBC figures, my view still holds: 100K deaths caused for maintaining the special relationship, selling weapons, access to oil and newly liberalised markets etc. ought to lose Labour elections on any moral measure. The Iraqi “democracy” is a sham, by any careful analysis, and the “withdrawing US troops” will not drop below 75,000 for ten years or more. (I don’t imagine you are particularly politically aligned with Naomi Klein, but nevertheless her detailed analysis (in “Shock Doctrine”) of cancelled grassroots elections, and American construction companies used instead of local Iraqi tradespeople, on fraudulent contracts funded by the US taxpayer, in part explains the real intentions behind the disaster.)

On Green/Lib govt, I would tend to instinctively trust their generally moderate characteristics rather than many of the well-spoken Labour lawyers! To my mind, Labour has had a Machievellian, right-wing and remarkably authoritarian set of players: Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw, Blair/Brown, Hoon, David Milliband and so forth. There have been whippable wimps too, like Blears (I still can’t get her atrocious performance in the Monbiot interview out of my head!). I would sooner have considered and gentle characters at the top, who are not as media savvy, smooth-talking, question-avoiding or unstoppably careerist, and my view is (presently) there are more of that sort in the Greens or the Lib Dems than there are in the Labour elite.

The MSM might therefore be scornful of these amateurs, but in reality the top players in the MSM tend to be establishment conservatives (not necessarily Tories) anyway, and they are generally not in favour of transparent government, income redistribution and genuine social mobility.

JON Thank you for your measured response. In the time available all I will say is that politics is about getting votes and winning power. I have been a member of the party for 30 years and Foot and Kinnock were simply unelectable because, like it or not, they did not appeal to the vast majoity of the UK electorate. Blair’s genius was in moving the LP to the centre and making the LP electable – you call it right wing I call it pragmatism. Dogma without power is meaningless and the LP achieved great things in governement. Blair was also a brilliant communicator, whatever you think of him. The evidence of the last few weeks illustrates that. Brown is a disaster. I disagree with all the illegal war stuff – Iraq is a better place for our intervention and history will show it. I agree about green issues. My personal view is that the planet is doomed but there is no political force on the planet that can stop us going over the cliff.

I knew with certainty that he wouldn’t answer anyone’s questions and just limp incessantly onwards with his crazy fantasies. I have now been proved conclusively right. He must be feeling all spooked out. Oh dear Jessy. I will play my violin for you…