Boris

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-28254109

So there's a rumour that Boris may stand for Uxbridge/south Ruislip as My MP John Randall is stepping down at the end of this term.

One step away from a leadership contest and then could we have Boris as PM?

 

Yes, that would improve our standing abroad. For the country it's one Eton Tory **** after another.

Next.

 

And we should improve our standing by electing Ed Miliband as PM perhaps?

 

One thing about Eton Tory tw@ts is they seem to be a bit better with money than the communards.

 

I'd be very surprised if the King Of London would step off his perch to take on D-Cam this close to election time.

Tory suicide.

 

I'd imagine the timeline will work quite well for him. Whoever wins this next election is in deep trouble I think as 0% interest rates are just kicking the can down the road. Labour will in particularly struggle if they win because they'll have to cut spending after moaning about it for 5 years in opposition. And that's before we get to the Mililband factor.

So likely scenario is Miliband wins election and which point Boris can be leader of oppostion, and he'll be PM 5 years after when Labour has a nightmare. Think he's timed it well?

 

I think he'd need to do at least one term before challenging for party leadership. This seat is pretty safe and is likley to be the most attractive one to parachute him into. The council is very good and well able to cope with an MP that has other duties like Mayor of London.

I think the next parliament is on a knife edge. Being PM the next term may be a poison chalice. If the public start to see the effects of the recovery towards the end of this year, (It hasn't filtered through to average Joe on the street yet) then they might give the Tories a chance. The Tories may be able to get everything sorted if given another term. If Labour get in with their current policies and hopeless line up then it'll all go to pot. UKip will be lucky to get an MP imho. The Euro elections were a protest vote.

 

Labour will not win the next election outright. Miliband is as unelectable a leader as they've ever had.

Maybe they'll be the majority in a hung parliament and have to team up with the others, but historically, at this point of a parliament - the opposition would have to be much further ahead in the polls to take power.

Basically, if you think it was a mess after the last election, you ain't seen nothing yet.

 

A. Tell that to those who are currently feeling the pinch.
B. 'Black Wednesday'.

 

Think Farage has a decent chance of winning Thanet. Think it will be extremely hard for Tories to get a majority with the 6% electoral bias they need to overcome.

 

Can't say it would, but I'll still vote Labour.

 

What would really throw the whole thing up in the air would be a 'Yes' vote in Scotland. Whilst it would seem good news for the Tories they would have to ride a 'Boo-hoo jilted partner' English Nationalist swing towards UKIP and a counter-balancing reaction towards the left.

What would happen - haven't a clue, but no farker will be voting Liberal that's for sure.

 

Certainly the Tories wouldn't leave us this way.:]]

 

Where is the flippin 'like' button?

 

Labour would shoot up the polls if they replaced 'Grumpy Cat' lookalike Ed with Yvette Cooper. She is almost like a sort of sane, 'normal' person, (other than being married to Ed Balls).

 

Yes - the prospect of a Yes vote in Scotland is interesting. On face value it would seem to do Tories a big favour, but apparently not including Scotland would not have changed the outcomes of and election in terms of who won, except that Cameron would not have needed a coalition with the Lib Dems and would have had a 21 seat majority instead.

Doesn't change things as much as I thought - Blair would still have won 3 in a row.

 

There are probably slightly more Tory inclined voters in the rest of the UK (without Scotland), but enough potential Labour voters for any result. But it leaves the door open for another, as yet unexpected, configuration.

 

Her developing a fake northern accent from 2011 onwards to appeal to her core vote didn't do her credibility any favours. I think a fair few of the Labour front bench are toxic to voters. Having Milband, Balls, Harman and Cooper there just ties the party back to the bad days of Brown. Need a complete clear out I think.

I think Darling still has much to offer. His high profiles rows with Brown/McBride seperate him from the club, and he always came across well as Chancellor in difficult circumstances.

 

Yvette Cooper?
Minister for Housing who introduced the Hips scheme. That went well.
Failed to solve the housing crisis and was criticised for flipping her home on expenses three times in two years to obtain £40K plus a year in funded mortgage payments.

Labour need a credible leader and i'm afraid it has to be someone new, not tarred with the issues caused by the Blair & Brown administrations.

 

Good suggestion. The fact that he looks like the eagle from the muppets rather than Wallace from Wallace & Grommet has to be a bonus.

Darling

Eagle

 

Haha - that eagle lookalike is good.

Joking aside, he does have credibility that the others lack. I'm fairly sure he was a house flipper as well, but that aside he just seems more sincere than Miliband/Balls/Harman/Cooper.

In my eyes anyway.

 

A. Isn't it part of the point of being poor that you feel the pinch? In seriousness, are you genuinely blaming the collapsed economy on the Eton ****s and not on Brown's borrow and spend gluttony?
B. How far back are you going to have to go to prove your point? The current financial situation is a direct result of people who are still in opposition. The people responsible for Black Wednesday are probably all dead or retired to the Lords.

 

Who would be a worse Labour leader, Ed Milliband or Dianne Abbott?

 

I actually like Diane Abbott as a person, but she's thick as mince.

 

I think Boris has Vydra's agent

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/ne...turn_to_Westminster_via_Hertsmere_/?ref=var_0

 

We could have comfortably accommodated Labour's spending had the financial sector, chocabloc wiv yer actual toffs, not behaved so recklessly. The Tories thought so as they modelled very similar spending when in opposition.

What's wrong with going back 20 years anyway? - the point was a general one.

You might not have noticed but the country is awash with luxury spending which barely broke stride from 2008 onwards. That's a choice. The Tories did not make a choice in favour of poorer people when dealing with the deficit. You can't imagine that choice, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possible.

 

"We could have comfortably accommodated Labour's spending had the financial sector, chocabloc wiv yer actual toffs, not behaved so recklessly. The Tories thought so as they modelled very similar spending when in opposition."

Don't think so. Brown was running a deficit before 2007. If he can't run a balanced book when we have a massive crack credit boom then when can he be expected to stop borrowing?

You are correct the Tories said they would match (and indeed I think outspend!) Labour. I think this was out of desperation as opposed to what they actually believed in - they ran their Michael Howard election campaign on a ticket of reducing waste and moderating government expenditure. They were smashed in that election as the electorate was enjoying the sweeties and didn't want it to end. As a result, Osbourne decided to join in with the madness, which is a shame as by doing that he now can't point out Brown's mistakes.

 

Incidentally you're a bit behind the times - London's financial sector isn't full of "toffs" any more. More smart, well educated people from all over Europe, and from all different backgrounds.

 

Think your selling UKIP short I believe they will get quite a few MP`s I also think the next GE will be another hung parliament so whoever wins (prob Con) might have to do a deal with UKIP.

 

Der.

But which of the following professions has more Toffs?

Social Work
Plumbing
Bus-driving
Banking

If they are that smart and well educated why did they **** it up so Royally? Oh I see it's a 'global crash' when it's your side's role in it being discussed...

 

We've run a deficit since god knows when.

You can't claim they believed in something else when they didn't claim so themselves. They changed their minds afterwards and opportunistically went on an ideological attack.

 

I don't think so. UKIP won the protest vote at the Euro Elections, which in the eyes of the electorate is less important than the Eurovision Song Contest.

Any momentum they had has been slowly dying off as a result of far less stories involving issues in Europe.

They were comfortably beaten in the first By-Election they took seriously. Farage might win a seat at the election but they won't have nearly enough MP's to be a coalition partner in the way the LibDems have (visually) been.

 

Well, old school stockbrokers and private banks were and somtimes still are full of "toffs", in the first case due to nepotism, but in the medium term because toffs tend to have excellent social networks which are perfect in those entities. However, these types of businesses had very little to do with the crash.

The bankers everyone wants to put in the witches chair tend to be recruited more on educational merit (internships aside). These guys messed it up because they got greedy. However, their greed and poor judgement shouldn't detract from the fact that they are smart people imo.

 

Yes. I'm not defending the Tories, and they certainly haven't made much of a dent in appetite for government expenditure this parliament. I'm just pointing out that it was rather irresponsible of Brown to run a deficit in a time of record tax receipts and it certainly reduced our ability to stimulate the economy with government expenditure when the crash inevitably came. Labour must take their share of the blame for that.

 

You can't blame the banking crash completely for the situation we are currently in.

In a time of great prosperity (set up by the Tories before them). Labour decided to spend something like £5 for every £4 in tax revenue (The actual figure escapes me for the moment). This wasn't invested in useful things like roads, transport or other infrastructure or on improving health & education provisions. It was wasted on a massively bloated public sector, failed IT projects (Scrapped NHS system), poorly managed defence contracts (2x aircraft carriers with no planes more expensive to cancel than to continue building) and unsustainable pension & wage increases.

Whilst over borrowing and then over spending, they decided to sell off the gold reserves at the lowest prices seen in years to further sweeten the pot. This was the rainy day fund that would have more bailed out the banks which crashed, mainly due to the relaxation of regulation they instigated. The crash was triggered by the fraudulent selling of toxic debt in the US which knocked confidence and hence trading in the UK. Trading which was needed to ensure People's pensions and savings kept up with cost of living rises due to Labour's tax & spend policies

This may well be an over simplification and I might well have glossed over other contributory factors, but it gives a fair overview of the complete financial mismanagement of New Labour. To put the blame fully in the banking sector is an unfair although they do need to take some responsibility and moderate their bonuses.

Until everyone from the Blair/Brown era is purged from the Labour party I can not take them seriously and certainly would never trust them with a penny, let alone the huge amount of tax I'm forced to pay each month.