A swipe at Nick Clegg's game show technique

34 mins in on Thursday's Newsnight.

So that's my 5 secs of fame used up.

Having said all that I think the 80% EU immigrant things mistake by Clegg is the biggest gaff of the debate.


PS Thanks to @jo_beckett, @CaitlinCornwall & @rogthornhill for pointing it out and @Clipso1 for remembering it.

Cameron wins the third debate

David Cameron has finally seem fully engaged ! He's a man on fire tonight.

David Cameron 9
Gordon Brown 7
Nick Clegg 4

Brown was better than last time for a debate that must have been hard to compose himself for. But the droning on and the failure to recognise his record have done for him.

Clegg is just trying to pull the same tricks we've seen twice before. The hand waving, the old party tag, the lets stop making political points - political point. The media room is apparently laughing at him each time he tries to pull it, and so is the country. Clegg has blown it and got no points across at all this week. ( He's also just a bit too orange tonight - perhaps the lighting isn't right for him, but his luminous tie doesn't help. )

Cameron fought much harder at the start and wasn't afraid top strike this time, and very effective it was too. Some very fast thinking by him - like turning the £20k tax threshold around to show that Labour think anyone who earns more than that as rich and ready to be taxed.

Also the pointing out that the state and the economy aren't the same thing scores good points.

I think you'll see Labour's slide stop, but the Lib Dem bubble has been burst.

Cameron is the only man who looks and sounds like a prime minister, and Brown has started questioning him as if he already is ! Clegg looks tired and exasperated.

Brown implicitly conceding defeat by talking about a Conservative government with Lib Dems. The BBC hates his neagtive message on his closing speech !

A clear win for David Cameron - and I hope the country also !

PS Bye bye Gordon.

The Lib Dems have been wrong on the biggest question of the hour

Those serial chancers the Lib Dems probably thought being anti-Tory and siding with Labour on carrying running of the nations credit card for a few months was a smart move. After all it allowed them to stir endlessly and smear shamelessly.

But now, just one week before polling day, the weak point of that argument becomes clear.

Its always been known about, and it was Labour's chancellor Alistair Darling who put it best when he described the UK skating in thin ice which will suddenly give way. Once the cracks start its just a moment till your under the freezing water. No time to change your mind.

Events in Europe show how real that risk is.

Labour and the Lib Dems want to try our luck on the ice, because it offers themselves the best political returns.

The Conservatives have argued that reductions in over spending need to happen now, not next year. Like the Irish we want to set about safeguarding our country from calamity. The Lib Dems and Labour have chosen the Greek route.

David Cameron must crush Nick Clegg with this tonight. Labour is finished, but the Lib Dems could yet finish the UK with their selfish and ignorant economic policy. This is not a local council election where the traditional shameless Lib Dem stirring and opportunism can be tolerated any longer.

Vote Conservative - whilst there's still time and you've only heard the ice creek, not crack.

Is the end near ?

This blog has been fuelled by its nemesis - Gordon Brown.

As it now looks unlikely he can't survive the next week, I'm now starting to wonder about the blog also.

Any candidates for the position of new Man in a Shed Nemesis ? Or perhaps it will be time to call time.

The irony of events like #BigotGate and the Euro debt crisis

So some of Brown's personality has leaked out to the outside world, and an unfortunate life long Labour supporter has been humiliated by this weeks prime minister.

But in some ways Brown can count himself lucky. Focusing on what happening to countries with massive debts and structural deficits in Europe would have been perhaps even worse news for Labour.

But there is an underlying irony here also.

The idea that concern about levels immigration was being bigoted was the main theme the BBC/Guardian/Labour party used to smear the Conservative party with in 2005.

The other was the idea of savage cuts in public spending - remember Blair just managing to say that the slightly lower levels of planned Conservative spending were like sacking every teacher nurse and doctor in the country ( even he almost couldn't keep a straight face for it ).

Where are we today ? Having lost all control of the mass migration into our country and with debts that could at any minute sink us beneath the waves.

The irony today is as bad as the headlines are, they have made it a good day to bury bad economic news.

Looking to Greece, Portugal and now Spain its quite clear that the Irish did the right thing and faced up to their financial disaster, in the way the Conservatives are most likely to. The Labour approach is that of the Greek governments - lie to the people and the world. The Lib Dems are a mixture of the two - as always.

Coming one day before the economic debate between the leaders Brown will have been desperate to keep that news low down the running order. ( Along with the failure of the UK economy to grow and the record unemployment figures. )

But in many ways this is a day of what goes around comes around as chickens come home to roost after 5 years.

Today's recommended reading: "Farewell, free stuff"

I need to get on today, but given all the news about Greece and the IFS's warning about all parties plans to deal with the rising national debt let me recommend reading the article "Farewell free stuff" in the Bagehot column of the Economist a few weeks ago ( I flagged it then - but its worth a read given today's headlines ).

I heard David Miliband repeating Gordon Brown misinformation campaign on the economy on the radio today. Labour will keep on doing this - but look to the quotes I have on the right of this blog to see the eventual consequences.

Lets be clear - the next few months need a strong government to sort out the economic crisis that most people are keeping quiet about.

A hung parliament held to ransom by Lib Dem triple lock internal party wrangling won't do it, and will most likely lead to a political and economic crisis. ( The only question will be which destroys the resulting government first ).

A hung parliament - anti-democratic deals behind closed doors and party lists

Short note on Lib Dem polcies

Listening to R5L this morning it strikes me just how unpopular Lib Dem polices on their immigration amnesty, the uncosted and unthought through Trident replacement ( which they allow people to think means no replacement ), the EU and Euro are.

I was also reassured to hear people reporting that they understood that the first debate was an X-Factor sort of thing, and therefore transient and unreliable.

Hopeful signs.

The politicised foreign office

Two things thing we have learnt from the Foreign Office Pope memo fiasco are:

1. There is now a very low standard of personnel employed in the foreign office ( and perhaps in the rest of the civil service ). Anyone with half a functioning brain cell could have figured out the damage that memo could cause - let alone someone employed in the Foreign Office. This must be seen a as direct result of Labour's changes in civil service recruiting.
2. Politicisation of the civil service runs deep and wide. The aggressive anti-Catholic nature of the memo shows that this sort of anti-Christian, anti-Religious group think is probably widespread in the FO. It may mean major changes are needed if there is an incoming Conservative administration.

More details of this embarrsing ( for a department that is supposed to specialise in understanding other countries / cultures ) are emerging here.

England - not even a whisper

There's some talk in the election campaign about:

# health
# education and training
# local government
# social work
# housing
# planning
# tourism, economic development and financial assistance to industry
# some aspects of transport, including the Scottish road network, bus policy and ports and harbours
# law and home affairs, including most aspects of criminal and civil law, the prosecution system and the courts
# the Police and Fire services
# the environment
# natural and built heritage
# agriculture, forestry and fishing
# sport and the arts
# statistics, public registers and records
Ref see here

But in reality the Westminster election is only about English health, English education and training etc etc - with the proviso that the overall funding of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations is related to that of the English system decided by the UK parliament.

And yet not a word about England is heard.

The Conservatives are the only main party to have any attempt to out the imbalance right with their measures on English votes for English laws. In my opinion it doesn't go anywhere near enough.

Lets see if any of that smarmy Lib Dem self righteousness can extend to the real democratic deficit in this country - the English Question ?

No - thought not.

David Cameron won this debate against expectations

Quietly pleased with David Cameron's performance tonight.

The Lib Dem tails are already down - they were crushed on trident, immigration and banks.

Clegg looked like he knew it at the end.

Much better.

PS Next time David Cameron needs to do something about Nick Clegg's attempts to use Labour's smears by letting Brown make then and preventing Cameron to answer.

Blue skys and a green land

There's little point saying much political today. The fight to expose the Lib Dem or suck up to them ( as Peter Mandelson's trying to do right now ) can get by without me just now.

I went along to the Woking Churches together hustings, but I'm going to delay commenting on them for a small bit until the aftermath of the LeadersDebate mk2 is over.

In the mean time - look what aircraft did to the blue skys over Woking on their first day back.

( Note the sky over Woking is blue still, not a depressing yellow. )

Also there's something in the picture below (click to enlarge ).

Vince Fable

Its about time some one did this .....

How to kill the Lib Dems stone dead

Its occurred to me that we should refuse any coalition or negotiation in the event of a hung parliament, and David Cameron should announce that policy now.

If asked to form a government we should present a budget and dare the other parties to vote it down. If they do then unless they form a coalition a new general election should be called.

Its time to stop Nick Clegg playing the field ( where did he develop that habit from ? ).

People need to be clear - vote Lib Dem get Gordon Brown as prime minister.

As soon as that happens the Lib Dem poll position will collapse.

PS The poster was uploaded onto by a Coffee house reader - can't find a name to credit, but well done.

Update: This is clearly the approach the Lib Dems fear the most as today we have Clegg trying to distance himself from the idea of supporting Brown as PM.

Major update: David Cameron is announcing this policy today. There will be no giving in to blackmail from the Lib Dems from a Conservative government ( not that the Lib Dems could ever have delivered given their mistrust of even their own leader with the Triple Lock Mechanism ).

A sense of wonder

.. and a sense of forboding.

I saw the President of Iceland on Newsnight last night almost begging Europe to get ready for what may happen when the major volcano that is overdue to erupt blows, as it has historically usually done after an eruption at Eyjafjallajökull.

Iceland has been hit very hard by its bankers and Gordon Brown. But they are at least getting prepared.

PS I hope there's a question on the disgraceful way Iceland was treated over the banking crisis in the foreign policy leaders debate.

Real change

The week of the Black Swan

It just occurs to me that we have had two of the type of events that we are warned about in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book The Black Swan.

That is potentially high consequence yet rare and unlikely events.

1) Nick Clegg manages to get away with claiming the Lib Dems are different in terms of the expenses ( the facts say otherwise ) and is allowed to brush off the funding of the Lib Dem party from dubious sources. The public responds with X Factor like support.

2) All air traffic is stopped because of a volcano in Iceland.

Both have potentially disastrous consequences for the UK. Nick Clegg may be forced by the left wing Lib Dem party to support their fellow left-wingers and keep Brown as PM. ( I personally think Clegg can't stand Brown and is very close to Conservative view points on many things - unlike Red Vince Cable - and would prefer to make David Cameron PM - but his party won't let him. )

But its the volcano that shows the real consequences of incompetant government such as we've had under Labour.

The current volcano situation could be worse - much worse ( and may still become so ). We could be looking at crop failure over much of the Northern Hemisphere, and starvation in this country.

Do you think the government is prepared ?

This government can't even organise salting the roads, and is taken in by the Global Warming industry to allow us to destroy our industry and export our jobs to the far east. They have no chance of making suitable preparations, which have high political cost, but little likelihood of political payback.

When the general election is over this issue needs to be properly revisted - and by a Conservative government.

Nick Clegg squirning his way out of man Lib Dems last manfeasto promises

A Clockwork Clegg: The Nick Clegg Newsnight road crash

Remember the Lib Dems sold everyone down the river over Lisbon. Remember his fake outrage and the pathetic childish walk out ?

Take a second look at the real Nick Clegg.

The false dawn of Nick Clegg

I've just finished watching the various post debate TV shows and I have to agree with the headline consensus - Nick Clegg put on a good performance.

He was able to play his clearly planned attempts to make the audience his friend trick, and of course variations on the plague on both your houses traditional Lib Dem ploy.

Nick Clegg is clearly more of the used car salesman than either of the other two party leaders, and its clear he won the battle of style.

However, as always with the Lib Dems, the Achilles heal is substance.

Nick Clegg deployed the Lib Dems plans to sacrifice defence of the UK and its independent status by surrendering a capable nuclear deterrent. ( Though the adding St Petersberg to Moscow on the British Nuclear doctrine is a nice tough, but a clearly pre-scripted one that all Lib Dem spokespeople have been using for a few days. ) Lib Dems not - having nuclear weapons and a sufficient deterent aren't the same thing.

Lib Dems will moan that they aren't unilateralists - but I have yet to hear an alternative that meets the requirements of Trident which are to ensure your enemies of their inevitable nuclear destruction if they attack the UK with nuclear weapons. ( You can stop banging on about Astute class submarines with cruise missiles Lib Dems because by the time you create the necessary capability it will cost more not less. )

The Lib Dems are also very dishonest about the profile of the costs for a Trident replacement - which will be a small part of the defence budget over many years. - citing the overall cost as they do is very misleading (and you have to assume that they are trying to pull the wool over the public's eyes on this as its so blatant). If you think we need to cut back on defence then the obvious candidates are the RAF and the new carriers, but none come without consequence.

Lib Dems should remember that nuclear capable supersonic bombers come to the edge of UK airspace on a regular basis even now.

And then there's the deficit. Nick Clegg made some welcome noises about the full impact of Labour's financial road crash and debt disaster not being recognised by this campaign. However they then went on to shower spending pledges and give tax bribes without focus ( unlike the Conservatives NI ideas which are very focuses on jobs and growing the economy ).

The hope for the Lib Dems is that they won't get much scrutiny on their polices or the fact that in much of the country they try to run as a proxy Labour party. Here in Woking the Lib Dems are the ones who campaign for more spending all the time - though being the Lib Dems it doesn't stop them trying to claim they would tax less.

The question is will there be time and sufficient attention to get to the bottom of these issues, or will the superficial Lib Dem positions survive through lack of scrutiny ?

This should prove to be a false dawn for Nick Clegg, caused by his luck on being able to deploy short sound-bites without consequence. However it will make it harder for the Lib Dems to replace him after the general election, and that may be the lasting legacy.

Like the floods before the volcano catches UK Govt out again

Our politicians are mostly interested in themselves.

Just as when Labour was too caught up in the coronation of Gordon Brown after the bullied his way into office, so UK Govt hasn't even appeared to react to the Icelandic volcano eruption. Gordon's to busy trying to figure out how to act normal.

And yet things could get much much worse.

One day, maybe one day soon, we may all rely on the competence of the Uk Govt to eat and drink in the event of a major eruption.

Does anyone have any confidence that the current Govt could feed the UK for any period of time at all ?

We are three square meals from chaos.

Give it a day or two and the meetings of COBRA and photo calls in police operations rooms will start. This is the real risk of keeping Brown - one day his judgements might mean life or death and not just the economic destitution he has condemned much of the country to in the future,

PS I should explain that eruptions in Iceland can last from a few days up to two years ... when crop failure and a freezing climate become an issue. And its not like no one knew - all you had to do was watch the BBC's super volcano docu-drama a few years ago.

As expected - the Labour machine has just realised the political Brownie points going begging here. On Monday Gordon Brown will do his COBRA thing again.

Pre-debate jitters

I'm not convinced this three way debate is a great idea for anyone except the Lib Dems ( who clearly win big just by being on the same platform as Labour and the Conservatives ).

I also have a feeling that one and a half hours will just be too much.

But I could be pleasantly surprised ....

My guess is Brown will have been given some key phrases to deploy and will struggle to work them into almost appropriate responses.

Nick Clegg will do his fake outrage thing that makes him look such an idiot.

And David Cameron ... will perhaps try to be too clever in some of his answers, or at least introduce ideas that there isn't time to get across properly.

We can expect Labour to have planted questions on class war, the Lib Dems on Trident and the Conservatives on NI.

Lets see ...

PS Anyone got any ideas what twitter tags will gain currency for this ?

Brown's pitch to the IT workers he helped to decimate

This link gives a link to a rather pathetic article by the bringer of IR35 and mass IT immigration for the votes of IT workers. ( I assume its one of the approved Brown Balls team cabal who penned it. )

It also shows one of Labour's key delusions and failures.

The delusion is that government's create jobs.

The failure is that even those jobs that were created in the private sector ( by any and all means ) seem to have gone to foreigners.

But none of this will stop Labour from trying to pull the "White heat of technology" ploy again.

They know it doesn't work - for the country - but hope it might work for them.

This is a pattern repeated in so much else of what Labour does and explains, in part, why they are unfit to hold office.

Since there are no perceived consequences, there is no fear, and the election is dull - so far

Things seem a little dull.

Don't get me wrong I think its all going reasonably well. George Osborne has confounded his critics with a series of master strokes - typical of which was his one line dismissal of the anti-Tory line up of experts the BBC's World at One used to try and talking down the ideas behind the Big Society more with less state manifesto launch. ( All the experts the BBC lined up were against public involvement in decisions about how they were governed. It would have been fine if they had outlined the pro and against arguments - but they just dismissed them. )

But things aren't on fire.

The opinion polls apparently have narrowed again - but I have to say my totally unscientific experience of knocking on peoples doors tells me we are doing well. As a canvasser you look at the canvassing result from the last visit and brace yourself before knocking on the door of a house you think may be hostile - but I have to say all the feedback has been good (better than I expected), and I'm not the only one to be pleasantly surprised by it.

Some in the media have said the internet and new media hasn't really come alive ( apart from the new hobby of poster spoofing and the only main victim of the campaign so far thanks to twitter ). I think that can be explained by the fact that a lot of the activists who blog etc are very busy right now doing the traditional campaign thing, and the media have brought full resources to bear on the campaign - so those who are interested in politics have plenty of MSM output to read and watch. But again it makes thing dull.

Some commentators complain that none of the main parties is fully introducing the voters to the true horror of the country's financial predicament ( thanks for that by the way Gordon ). They're right of course, but anyone who tries it gets killed by the rest of the media. Why is this ? Because the electorate is still in denial about what's happened. The Economist put this nicely with this weeks article "Farewell free stuff" from Bagehot. I tried the same a few weeks ago with "Much of the country have the same problem as Unite's BA cabin crew". But spending all the time pretending there is no financial reckoning coming is dull.

Things are dull because the fear is missing. If people saw what confronts us they wouldn't be considering voting for an outcome that might allow a hung parliament.

If there's any consolation its that the next general election after this one is likely to be governed by fear and will be a lot a higher adrenalin affair.

My guess is that if a Conservative majority isn't returned of greater than 20 seats that next election will be within 12 months. But by then we would have had events to make us fearful. However explaining that is just too dull as no one can remember the chaos of a government without adequate support in the commons.

Maybe the leaders debates will liven things up before its too late.

PS I should acknowledge that Labour has been doing its best with fear with the cancer scaremongering etc- but they've lost so much credibility and have so transparently failed that they are ignored.

The Dutch auction where the English will always lose - a hung parliament

So the BBC is getting all excited about the prospect of a hung parliament ( now why is this so familiar from decades past ? ).

And here the problem - the potential partners for a minority govt and what they want ( almost all of them English money ).

The SNP, Plaid, SDLP, DUP and lets face it the Lib Dems will all be looking to protect their celtic homelands from the finaicial disater that the Celtic Labour party has created of the UK's public finances.

Hence its quite clear if there's a hung parliament its the English who will pay for it as selfish Celts try to hold onto their financial bribes from the centre at the expense of the sick and poor in England.

Brown is coming close to abondoning his electoral candidates to cling to power

Its almost unbelievable but Labour are so desperate to cling to power that they are now undermining their own candidates in a desperate attempt to damage the country by creating a hung parliamnet.

And its not just Lord Adonis, but Gordon Brown himself.

I'm almost feeling sorry for Labour candidates in much of England. ( Of course in much of England they can't even get local council candidates, let alone votes ! )

Why are only public sector jobs sacred ?

I ask this as we are still having the infantile argument about taking less out of the real economy leading to destroying that same economy by removing the support of the state spending it rather than those who earned it spending it. ( Which is what the National Insurance tax reduction debate comes down to. )

On #R4Today this morning we had an academic telling us efficiency savings would mean job cuts ( indeed savage cuts - though he did at least confirm that the planned Conservative savings were indeed feasible. )

If state spending was such fabulous a solution why don't we borrow more money to "take action to prop up the economy". The answer is obvious - and once you've thought of it you realise it applies to the current over spending also.

I used to work for a number of small engineering firms and all the employees knew if we stopped getting work then within about a month people would start losing their jobs. But for some reason this world only applies to the wealth creating sector.

The private sector has lower pay, far poorer job security, and non of the wonderful gold plated pensions their special friends in the state sector ( who they pay for ) enjoy.

This is an unacceptable state of affairs. It only continues due to the deep dishonesty of Labour and their Lib Dem friends.

Sent from my HTC

Its going to be a local election

Its so close in Royston Vasey !: Its going to be a local election

Not sure I can manage a whole month of the general election without some light relief... Any ideas gratefully received.

Labour's #JobTax road crash continues

Further to the really awful interview Gordon Brown gave on Radio 4's today this morning where he accepted full responsibility for the worse financial crisis in living memory, but claimed he did nothing wrong ( those of you who are still breathing will see the weak point in this blatant lie - as ever told straight to the peoples faces by Brown ).

Even the comedians have started to understand why the government destroying the economy by taxing it with the #JobsTax ( National Insurance paid by employers and employees ) reduces the size of the productive economy ( that we are all relying on to save us ) and reduces the money available to things like the health service ( which Labour are trying to say they are saving ).

The Daily Mash gets it - why can't Gordon ?

General election service

Well it seems like its on.

In a way this is very much a New Labour dissolution of parliament in that all the details seem to have been leaked before hand, with their characteristic disregard for our Monarch. Details of the starting statements of all three political leaders are in the public domain.

Call me old fashioned but I'll be adjusting my election clock ( one of the first, if not the first, in the blogsphere I might add ) once our sovereign has indicated her permission for parliament to be dissolved.

There's going to be frantic activity by online activists. The poster wars have already shown that.

However I know few people change their minds by reading a blog, and many people read blogs to pick up an individual view point. So I'll try to remember that fact and provide it.

The caveat will of course be that I'm a paid up Conservative - if you want to read attack on Tory policy and spin etc you'll need to head elsewhere.

I'll see what I can do to bring any ground truth information I can find.

And of course finally this is a very important general election for me. I've been set against the Labour government and specifically Gordon Brown for many years. I am one of the first to have called Gordon Brown a liar and I despair of the Liberal Democrats potentially keeping him in power.

For my nation I hope and pray for a Conservative victory with a working majority that will allow the damage Labour and the liberal establishment have inflicted on our country to be reversed.

England will fair badly out of this election. The main stream media will ignore us, the politicians will say the NHS and education when they mean the English NHS and English education. Quite frankly this is not our time, those of us who believe that England deserves the same status as the other home nations will need to work harder during the next parliament to get the issue up the agenda.

The next few weeks will be exhausting. The next few years almost terrifying ( whom ever wins - that's what the figures say, but this message hasn't really sunk in yet ).

I will do my best to share my perspective and thoughts with the stated caveats, bearing in mind that many of my readers take differing views.

I hope our nation will have a good debate and that reasoned decisions will be made in the ballot booth. I will campaign for that result to be a Conservative victory, but try to remember that everyone's going to have had their fill of media polished propaganda on the airwaves already.

Good luck everyone and I hope were all still on good terms by 7th of May.

Update: 29 days to go !

Is this the day ?

We can but hope ....

Will Brown bottle it again ?

With the polls turning against Labour again Brown must be considering going long.

They always fancy their chances to turning anything around - especially the truth.

Also Brown has always wanted to get the Tories to show their hand, allowing him to perform some of his infamous policy snatches and then say what else ?

Every one expects Brown to go to the palace on Tuesday, but whilst I agree its the most likely, I think Labour could yet go for June ( and maybe that's always been their plan as they have often tried to hint at an early election - probably to try and tease out likely Tory strategy and ideas ).

I suppose we'll all know shortly.

Update: Sky news are supposed to reporting sources saying Brown will go to the palace on Tuesday. Surely the whole thing has too much momentum to stop ? But Brown will regret not going in March ....

Easter Sunday

As we all get ready for the fight for our nation's soul, take a moment to reflect about life.

Happy Easter.

PS 59 days and counting ...

Anyone know what this is ?

This is not your usual post.

Does anyone have any idea what this light aluminium ( I assume ) bar is ? I found the bracket in the middle on the bonnet of the car and the bar a few feet away.

They definitely weren't there the day before.
Any ideas what it came from ? The ends have been flattened and it looks like some sort of spacer made by rolling a sheet of aluminium into a bar.



PS Its just occurred to me that this might be TV aerial related - off outside to look at the chimney !
Ah ha - this looks about right. I'm guessing it had another bar on it before some overweight pigeon tried to land on it.

Its a bit late in the day for this, but ....