He has just gritted his teeth and launched his bid for the Leadership and Premiership. Don't be taken in by his apparent conversion to something as conservative and Socialist as the Post Office. The closures would be happening if he were already Prime Minister. The same goes for the Milibands, for Burnham, for Hutton, for Milburn, for Byers, for Mandelson, for all that mob.
In the next Parliament, they plan the reduction of the NHS to a pure commissioner of services, the introduction of school vouchers while even state schools are permitted to charge absolutely any fees they like (far beyond the value of any voucher), war against Iran and Russia, and the complete abolition of public transport, local government and social housing. Among many other delights, of course.
They must be stopped.
But they won't and can't be stopped by Cameron, of course.
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Fascinating. You've been writing angry blog posts against the Labour govt for the past few days about how they're about to shaft the Post Office by not renewing the contract for benefit distribution. And then - er - they go and do it.
ReplyDeleteA problem? No no no! For David, of course, all this proves is that the Labour government can't possibly be supporters of the Post Office, its all a leadership challenge, and - whaddyaknow - he was right about this government all along!
I know we've never managed to pin you down on this before, but let's try again - how exactly do you know that this list of policies is going to happen? And please don't say "of course it will" or "the think tanks are talking about it" because its just not true.
ReplyDeleteThis is a laundry list of your nightmare policies which you're using as a straw man to beat a government you don't like. There is absolutely no chance of a single one of these happening in the next Parliament.
And given that the way in which you've been completely wrongfooted by the govt's position on post offices, why on earth do you think you have the tiniest shred of credibility with regards to what the govt will or won't do?
Well, I was hardly the only person saying these things, was I?
ReplyDeleteThey really couldn't take on ALL of the unions, the Press from Left to Right, both Opposition parties, their own backbenchers, everyone.
Purnell certainly couldn't. He doesn't have it in him. And anyway, he wants to be Prime Minister one day. He needs to be consolidating his base.
But he must be stopped. If he ever gets in, then all these dreadful things and more will certainly come to pass.
If he ever gets in, then all these dreadful things and more will certainly come to pass.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute horlicks. Not one of the long list of ridiculous policies you refer to will happen in the next parliament, and to claim that even one of them will, let alone all of them, simply makes you look stupid.
No Jon, you are the one who looks stupid. The people running all three parties sincerely believe that, at least where domestic policy is concerned, this is what the electorate WANTS. Yes, they really are as out of touch as that.
ReplyDeleteWho told them that? Over to Andrew: the think tanks. Integral parts of mainstream culture and society that they are, of course.
And why would the think tanks tell them that? Well, partly because they are staffed by academic hot house flowers. But rather more significantly because of who funds them.
In the next Parliament, they plan the reduction of the NHS to a pure commissioner of services, the introduction of school vouchers while even state schools are permitted to charge absolutely any fees they like (far beyond the value of any voucher), war against Iran and Russia, and the complete abolition of public transport, local government and social housing. Among many other delights, of course.
ReplyDeleteWhat were their bad point again?
"the reduction of the NHS to a pure commissioner of services, the introduction of school vouchers while even state schools are permitted to charge absolutely any fees they like (far beyond the value of any voucher)"
ReplyDeleteYep, they'll do them alright
"war against Iran and Russia, and the complete abolition of public transport, local government and social housing"
They won't quite pull those off, but they'll do a shed load of damage trying.
Which think tanks? Which people in these think tanks? Which events? Which publications? What conversations?
ReplyDeleteOr is this a bit like the moon landings, or JFK - a supposedly massive conspiracy that lots of people have somehow managed to keep a perfect secret for years, and no-one else knows, apart from, er, a few bloggers.
Which side would you back in Nagorno-Karabakh, Aelfheah? And why?
ReplyDeleteJim, spot on.
I don't the think tanks are involved David - you misrepresented my position. I used to work in one, and know a lot of people still in them, including the heads - and I have never heard one of them express a position like you set out on any of these issues, either in public or in private.
ReplyDeleteFace it - it isn't true. No one has these ideas, and they won't happen.
Jim - no they won't. I know they won't, because I have a modicum of common sense, and I know that these are stupid ideas that are poltiical suicide for any major party.
ReplyDeleteI'll ask you - how do you know they will?
"a perfect secret"
ReplyDeleteHardly!
Like, say, the PNAC/AEI lot, they have never been anything less than entirely open. It's not their fault if no one believes them.
Like, say, the PNAC/AEI lot, they will believe them when it actually happens. Don't let it.
"Like, say, the PNAC/AEI lot, they have never been anything less than entirely open. It's not their fault if no one believes them."
ReplyDeleteOk, then I say again - show me where. Which think tanks? Which people? Which publication? Which speeches? Which articles?
Oh, you Westminster Villagers just love it when you say these things and nobody notices, then you can always say that you made it clear from the outset. But you don't like it when somebody does notice, do you?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely any policy at all is only "suicide for any major party" if there is a way of voting against it. But these are the known and endlessly stated views of those running all three parties.
Just look at Jon, a Cameron-Tory apparatchik rushing to the defence of James Purnell. Of course.
I have to go and eat now.
"Which think tanks? Which people? Which publication? Which speeches? Which articles?"
ReplyDeleteAll of them.
And I say again, just look at Jon, a Cameron-Tory apparatchik rushing to the defence of James Purnell. Of course.
Aren't one-party states wonderful? Just ask Purnell, promised his current job whoever wins the next Election. To keep the Labour Whip and everything.
Right, back tomorrow afternoon.
I thought last time I was a NuLab apparatchik? Or was it that I was a neocon warmonger? Really, I do struggle to keep up with your various insults and funny attacks on people. Perhaps you could publish a glossary or something?
ReplyDeletePurnell doesn't sound like he comes from the Labour movement.
ReplyDeleteI don't go to the trouble of reading all the bloody think tank guff - nor does David - but commentators refer to Purnell as a Blairite.
Blair's stated agenda was about transforming the role of the state from providing services to contracting services from the private sector. This benefits big business and some more affluent workers, but is generally bad for society as it is more expensive and less accountable. See: academies, private involvement in NHS, etc, etc.
Jon, they are all the same thing. As you are rather proving b y rushing to defence of Purnell, Work and Pensions Secretary after the next Election regardless of who wins it.
ReplyDeleteCharlie, spot on. And read one, you've read 'em all. The old Trot Geoff Mulgan is being lined up for a job under Cameron, possibly even Ministerial ofiice with a peerage.
One Party Britain.
And look what that party is.
The reduction of the NHS to a pure commissioner of services - pretty much happened already.
ReplyDeleteWhat is any of this to someone like Jon? NHS, state schools, public transport, local government, social housing - he has never even set eyes on such things.
He wouldn't have to fight the wars against Iran and Russia either. Like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq he leaves that sort of thing to the lower orders and the darkies.
You may remember recently that Policy Exchange published a report on city regeneration (I know what you'll say - Policy Exchange fakers, islamophobic , Gove neocon yadda yadda yadda - heard the spiel, not relevant to my point, save it for someone who cares). This report proposed some things around encouraging people to move South. This was hugely controversial, picked up massively in the press, disowned by both the PM and Cameron.
ReplyDeleteNow if that - by comparison smaller - issue was picked up and pilloried UK wide - don't you think that maybe, just maybe, if they or someone else proposed COMPLETELY ABOLISHING local government, social housing or public transport, *someone* might have noticed and made a fuss about it?
No.
ReplyDeleteBecause no one (whom you have in mind) would disagree any more.
Of course it wouldn't be a single act or Act in any of these three cases. But all three processes are already very well-advanced as it is.
Jon's Fag (where you really, by the way?), your description of it also fits Purnell, of course.
The Purnell haircut, the Jon accent - ah, the Nineties...
The both look rather passé now that unapologetic poshness is back en vogue
ReplyDeleteLike their neoliberal economics and their neoconservative geopolitics, in fact. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But a slow clock is wrong all the time.
ReplyDeleteJon. Consider this welfare reform business. There's not much hoo-haa about the fact that a) employers aren't keen on employing those with disabilities, b) there aren't enough jobs for all, meaning c) the effect of welfare reform will be to cut benefits to the disabled and unemployed while increasing benefits to those "voluntary organisations" and "independent providers" who will be given contracts to do services already done by public sector workers...
ReplyDelete